The Knesset’s decision to vote to expel UNRWA from Israel is another major set-back for the Palestinian people. It’s also part of Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to remove all obstacles to his government’s plans to redraw the geostrategic map of the region.

The Israeli parliament’s overwhelming vote (92-10) this week to effectively ban the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) from working and providing any services inside Israel, including in East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank, is a major escalation in the toxic relationship between UNRWA and Israel. The new laws will block humanitarian aid routes, shut down the East Jerusalem office, and restrict entry and work permits for UNRWA staff.

The Knesset also passed another bill (87-9) declaring UNRWA a terror group, which effectively bans the UN agency from interacting with the Israeli state. These two laws, if implemented in 90 days, would severely limit UNRWA’s ability to conduct its humanitarian operations. Such a development would exacerbate an already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza where some 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced and are facing extensive food, water, and medicine shortages.

In order to placate international concerns that the situation in Gaza could soon become catastrophic if UNRWA is no longer able to deliver humanitarian aid, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that “we stand ready to work with our international partners to ensure Israel continues to facilitate humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not threaten Israel’s security.” I suspect few in the international community will put too much credence in that guarantee.

Why the laws?

In January 2024, Israel accused 12 UNRWA employees of having been involved in the terrorist attack of 7 October 2023 by Hamas and its fellow ideological travellers. Moreover, according to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), some 450 Gaza-based UNRWA employees were members of terrorist organisations. The IDF also revealed the existence of a subterranean Hamas data centre directly beneath UNRWA’s Gaza Strip headquarters. Some Israeli sources suggest that some 10 percent of UNRWA’s staff have ties to terror organisations. There is an estimated 13,000 UNRWA staff in Gaza today.

In light of these revelations, the Knesset decided that it no longer wished to provide a free platform for terrorists to use to attack Israel. It’s therefore no surprise that, except for the Arab lawmakers, these bills had support across the whole political spectrum.

However, not everyone was in support of these bills. The Israeli foreign ministry warned the lawmakers that this legislation could be in breach of international law and Israel could be expelled from the UN. Similarly, the security establishment guarded against the bills, warning that passing them without a replacement for UNRWA could mean trouble. Undeterred, the lawmakers proceeded because, given the mood of the country, not to do so would probably cost them dearly at the next polls.

International reactions

Not surprisingly, the reaction to the passing of these bills was overwhelmingly negative. Even Washington, which has been the most supportive of Israel of all western nations, expressed deep concerns about the controversial ban. Prior to the vote, the US State Department had urged Israel not to pass the legislation, saying the agency played “an irreplaceable role right now in Gaza.” The UK prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, was “gravely concerned.” The foreign ministers of Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Republic of Korea, and the UK issued a joint statement stating their opposition to the bills and warning of the “devastating consequences on an already critical and rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation” if aid delivery was hampered as a result of the passing of these bills. An UNRWA spokesperson decried the move as “outrageous.”

Now what?

Notwithstanding the Israeli government’s assurances that it will make sure humanitarian aid continues to flow into Gaza, including turning to other international agencies, such as the World Food Program, Médecins Sans Frontières, and UNICEF, as it already does today, the fact is UNRWA plays an overwhelming role delivering on so many fronts—medical, humanitarian aid, education, and social—that it will be very difficult to replace it easily and quickly. The people of Gaza will most likely suffer severely as a result.

Turning to the broader picture, the legislative decision to severely restrict UNRWA’s activities in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank will further strain already tense relations between Israel and western nations. Western political leaders have had to walk a very tight rope between supporting Israel against real non-state actor threats, notably from Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis—the 3 Hs—and placating the ever noisy and increasingly vocal domestic opposition to Israeli policies, including its devastating war in Gaza and the 43,000 dead Gazans it has already caused. This decision by the Knesset will absolutely not help matters in western capitals.

But Netanyahu has the upper hand militarily. And he knows it. But time is not necessarily on his side if he wants to remake the geostrategic map of the region. His hard deadline is the American election on 5 November. If Kamala Harris wins, American support for Israel is sure to be diminished once the new president is sworn in on 20 January 2025. So he needs to act quickly in case that scenario comes true. And this means pushing back all near and distant threats to Israel.

Over the last year, Hamas’s military capability has been severely degraded and its leader, Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the 7 October 2023 massacre, has been eliminated, as have most of its military leaders. Hezbollah, an even greater threat to the north of Israel, is in the process of being significantly degraded militarily. Its decades-long leader, Hassan Nasrullah, has been assassinated, and the entire military leadership has been decapitated. While Hezbollah still has significant military potency, its leaderless organisation is seriously weakened militarily and politically, and accordingly the other Lebanese political forces are starting to turn on it. Hezbollah was Iran’s jewel in its “Axis of Resistance” crown and its frontline security assurance against Israel. However, with Israel’s recent successful air strikes on some of Iran’s missile production sites and a drone factory, Tel Aviv confirmed its superior military reach and Iran’s new vulnerability. As for the Iran-supported, Yemen-based Houthis, their military threat has also diminished after successful Israeli strikes in recent weeks.

However, while Israel’s military fortunes may be on the rise for the moment, its long-term geopolitical outlook remains poor. If Israel is to ever have real peace, it will need to address the Palestinians’ legitimate right to political self-determination. Anything short of that, including massive financial investment for the economic development of Gaza and the West Bank, will simply not guarantee Israel’s long-term security, only another 7 October massacre down the road. And Israel’s pro-western regional interlocutors, led by Saudi Arabia, have made it abundantly clear that any bilateral diplomatic agreement with Israel would have to include political sovereignty for the Palestinians—a two-state political solution.

However, given the enormity of the physical and economic destruction Israel has ruthlessly inflicted on Gaza in the last year, and Hamas’s horrific terrorist attack on 7 October 2023, any hope of Palestinians and Israelis living peacefully side by side in a two-state solution—one that is anathema to Netanyahu’s political DNA—has been set back by years, if not forever, including from pro-peace moderates in Israel. And the latest anti-UNRWA decision will simply add more fuel to an already highly volatile situation in which the final act has yet to be played out.

Dr Claude Rakisits is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Brussels-based Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy (CSDS) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.