Daily Times

Israel faced an international backlash Tuesday after its parliament approved a bill banning the main United Nations aid agency for the devastated Gaza Strip, where deadly bombing continues.

Despite global concerns, including from Israel’s ally the United States, lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to ban the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) from working in Israel and annexed east Jerusalem.

The lawmakers also passed a measure prohibiting Israeli officials from working with UNRWA and its employees.

Israel strictly controls all humanitarian aid shipments to Gaza, where its forces have been fighting Palestinian militant group Hamas for more than a year in a conflict that the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry says has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians.

The danger faced by residents of the densely populated territory was underlined when an Israeli strike destroyed a five-storey residential block and killed more than 55 people, Gaza’s civil defence agency said.

There was no immediate comment from Israel on the reported bombing in Beit Lahia, but the Israeli military said that its air and ground forces had continued operations in both Gaza and south Lebanon.

UNRWA has provided essential aid, schooling and healthcare across the Palestinian territories and to Palestinian refugees elsewhere for more than seven decades.

“There is a deep connection between the terrorist organisation (Hamas) and UNRWA, and Israel cannot put up with it,” lawmaker Yuli Edelstein said in parliament as he presented the proposal.

But several of Israel’s Western allies voiced disquiet at the ban, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying Britain was “gravely concerned”.

Germany, which has been a staunch defender of Israel’s security, warned it would “effectively make UNRWA’s work in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem impossible… jeopardising vital humanitarian aid for millions of people”.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said the Israeli law could have “devastating consequences” if implemented and “would likely prevent UNRWA from continuing its essential work”.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini warned that the vote “sets a dangerous precedent”.

The foreign ministry of Israel’s neighbour Jordan, which also hosts UNRWA offices, condemned the ban as a “continuation of Israel’s frantic efforts to assassinate the UN agency politically”.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on social media that Israel was “ready” to continue providing aid to Gaza “in a way that does not threaten Israel’s security”.

The ban comes as fighting rages in Gaza and Lebanon, where a second full-scale front opened last month.

Earlier Monday, Netanyahu’s office said Mossad intelligence chief David Barnea had met US and Qatari mediators in Doha, where they agreed they should talk to Hamas about a deal to free Israelis seized in the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militants.

“In the coming days, discussions will continue between the mediators and Hamas to assess the feasibility of talks and to further efforts to promote a deal,” Netanyahu’s office said.

The statement came two days after Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi proposed a two-day truce and limited hostage-prisoner exchange that he said could lead to a permanent ceasefire.

But Netanyahu later said he had not received the Egyptian proposal. Asked about the possibility of a Gaza ceasefire, US President Joe Biden said: “We need a ceasefire. We should end this war. It should end, it should end, it should end.”

During the October 7 attack, Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages, incluing soldiers and civilians, of whom 97 are still in Gaza. The Israeli ministry says 34 of these are dead.

Netanyahu’s government is under mounting pressure from both hostage families and the international community to agree a ceasefire to allow the rest to come home.

Under the plan announced by Sisi, “four hostages would be exchanged for some prisoners in Israeli jails”, followed by more negotiations within 10 days aiming to secure “a complete ceasefire and the entry of aid” into Gaza.

On October 7 last year Palestinian armed groups from Gaza launched a cross border raid into Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 43,020 Palestinians in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah announced it has chosen deputy head Naim Qassem to succeed Hasan Nasrallah as leader after his death in an Israeli strike on south Beirut last month.

“Hezbollah’s (governing) Shura Council agreed to elect… Sheikh Naim Qassem as secretary general of Hezbollah,” the Iran-backed group said in a statement, more than a month after Nasrallah’s killing.

Hashem Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s executive council, was initially tipped to succeed Nasrallah. But he too was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs shortly after Nasrallah’s assassination.

Qassem, 71, was one of Hezbollah’s founders in 1982 and has been the party’s deputy secretary general since 1991.

According to an AFP tally based on official figures, at least 1,700 people have been killed in Lebanon since September 23, when the fighting escalated as Israel launched an air and ground offensive against Hezbollah, which had been carrying out rocket attacks in support of Hamas.