The United Nations warned Tuesday (Dec 30) that recent actions by Israel against the UN agency for Palestinian refugees risked depriving millions of people of basic services such as education and healthcare.
Israel’s parliament passed new legislation on Monday formally stripping the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) of diplomatic immunity, and barring Israeli companies from providing water or electricity to the agency’s institutions.
According to UNRWA, the legislation also grants the Israeli government the authority to expropriate the agency’s properties in East Jerusalem, including its headquarters and main vocational training centre.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini condemned the legislation as “outrageous”, decrying it on social media as “part of an ongoing, systematic campaign to discredit UNRWA and thereby obstruct the core role that the agency plays providing human-development assistance and services to Palestine refugees”.
“The vote by the Israeli parliament on 29 December 2025 passing new legislation against UNRWA is outrageous. It is a direct affront to the mandate granted to the Agency by the UN General Assembly and contrary to findings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which… pic.twitter.com/6tomQEoldS
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) December 30, 2025
Filippo Grandi, the outgoing head of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, and a former UNRWA chief, also criticised the move as “very unfortunate”.
In an interview with AFP, he highlighted that UNRWA, unlike other UN agencies, provides basic public services such as education and healthcare to the millions of registered Palestinian refugees it serves across Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
“If you deprive those people of those services…then you had better find a substitute,” he said, warning: “I think it would be very difficult.”
“At the moment, there is a great risk that millions of people will be deprived of basic services if UNRWA is further deprived of space to work, and resources to work.”
It has accused the agency of providing cover for Hamas militants, claiming that some UNRWA employees took part in the militant group’s Oct 7, 2023 assault on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.
A series of UN-linked internal and external investigations found some “neutrality-related issues” at UNRWA, but stressed Israel had not provided conclusive evidence for its headline allegation.
