Daily Times

Pakistan has told a UN panel that the Israeli legislation to shut down UNRWA, the main lifeline for Palestine refugees in Gaza, will plunge millions of Palestinians into chaos, and called on the international community to throw its weight behind the U.N. agency.

“The demonization and delegitimization of UNRWA must be halted and we must take concrete measures to ensure that UNRWA remains operational and carries out its humanitarian work in accordance with its mandate,” Pakistani delegate Ansar Shah said during a debate in the General Assembly’s Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) on Thursday.

The Israeli Parliament, known as the Knesset, adopted two bills earlier this month banning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from operating in its territory and prohibiting authorities from having any contact with it.

“The international community must uphold the principles of justice, human rights, and international law to restore hope and dignity to the Palestinian people,” Ansar Shah, a first secretary in the Pakistani Mission to the UN, said.

Pakistan had strongly condemned the Israeli attempts to dismantle the operations of the UNRWA as” flagrant violation of the UN Charter, international law, provisional measures: set by the ICJ (International Court of Justice) and the Court’s Advisory Opinion of 19 July.

Shah highlighted the grave concerns of millions of Palestinians’ that the Israeli move would cutoff essential public services on which their lives depend such as education, health, and social support.

“The entire population of Gaza fears that their only remaining lifeline will be cut. Without the intervention by Member States, UNRWA will collapse, plunging millions of Palestinians into chaos.

“We have to answer the call of Palestinian people,” the Pakistani delegate added.

He warned that the international order built on the basis of the UN Charter could collapse if the international community did not take concrete actions to uphold the Charter and the international law.

Reaffirming Pakistan’s steadfast support for Palestinians and their inalienable right to self-determination, he said, “The international community must uphold the principles of justice, human rights, and international law to restore hope and dignity to the Palestinian people.

Opening the debate, UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini highlighted catastrophic consequences: dismantling UNRWA would deny an entire generation of Palestinians the right to education and potentially leave 17,000 Agency staff in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unemployed. The risks posed would “fulfill an explicitly stated objective of the war in Gaza”, he said, emphasizing the Agency’s unique role in providing, not only education, but also healthcare and human development service to the Palestinian refugees.

“Today, UNRWA is a casualty of the war in Gaza,” he said, detailing the severe toll of the war on the Agency, with at least 243 personnel killed and more than two-thirds of premises damaged or destroyed.

UNRWA is “a soft target for warring parties”. However, it is a United Nations agency, and not a party to the conflict. If the Agency cannot operate in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the responsibility for providing services to Palestinians will lie, not with the United Nations, but with Israel as the occupying Power, UNRWA chief warned.

Addressing allegations of the Agency colluding with or being infiltrated by Hamas, Lazzarini said that those charges were used to attack the Agency in a global disinformation campaign.The independent review of the Agency found that it has a more robust neutrality framework than comparable entities, he said.

Painting a grim picture of the Gaza crisis, UNRWA chief said that more than 43,000 people have reportedly been killed and thousands more lie unaccounted for under the rubble amid widespread hunger.

“Across Gaza, 660,000 children who should be in school are learning nothing more than how to survive,” he said, highlighting the aggressive expansion of settler violence in the West Bank and escalating humanitarian crises across Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians depend on UNRWA for survival.

At the same time, Lazzarini urged the immediate release of Israeli hostages who remain in captivity.