Foreign Minister Penny Wong has hit out at the Israeli parliament’s decision to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency from operating in the nation.
Under the laws, the UN agency will be banned from carrying out work on Israeli soil, designating UNRWA a terror organisation.
The aid agency is the main organisation providing humanitarian relief to people in war-torn Gaza following the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.
Wong urged for humanitarian assistance to continue in the region.
“UNRWA does life-saving work. Australia opposes the Israeli Knesset’s decision to severely restrict UNRWA’s work,” Wong said on social media.
“Australia again calls on Israel to comply with the binding orders of the International Court of Justice to enable the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance at scale in Gaza.”
Wong’s comments came after Australia issued a joint statement on Sunday, alongside foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and the UK, urging Israel not to go through with the UNRWA ban.
The ban doesn’t technically include Gaza and the West Bank but is likely to severely restrict UNRWA’s work in those areas because the organisation relies on coordination with Israeli authorities and the use of Israeli-controlled border crossings to get aid in.
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi described the ban as “outrageous” and said the federal government should sanction Israel and expel its ambassador in Australia.
The UN agency has provided essential aid and assistance across Palestinian territories and to Palestinian refugees elsewhere for more than seven decades. Source: AP / Mohammad Zaatari
‘Outrageous’
Israel’s parliament on Tuesday approved the bill banning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees from working in Israel, despite objections from the United States.
Politicians passed the bill with 92 votes in favour and 10 against, after years of harsh Israeli criticism of UNRWA, which has only increased since the start of the war in Gaza following Hamas’ deadly October 7 attacks last year.
The ban on the UN agency — which has provided essential aid and assistance across Palestinian territories and to Palestinian refugees elsewhere for more than seven decades — is a blow to humanitarian work in Gaza.
The UNRWA condemned the Israeli parliament’s approval of the bill.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, said the ban opposes the United Nations charter and violates international law.
“This is the latest in the ongoing campaign to discredit UNRWA and delegitimize its role towards providing human-development assistance and services to [Palestinian] refugees,” he wrote on social media platform X.
“It’s outrageous that a member state of the United Nations is working to dismantle a UN agency which also happens to be the largest responder in the humanitarian operation in Gaza,” Juliette Touma, UNRWA spokesperson, told the AFP news agency.
The US said on Monday it was “deeply concerned” about the bill, reiterating the “critical” role the agency plays in distributing humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip.
In January, Israel accused a dozen of UNRWA’s Gaza employees of involvement in the October 7 attack by Hamas, which sparked the deadliest war in the territory.
A series of investigations found some “neutrality-related issues” at but found no evidence for Israel’s chief allegations.
“There is a deep connection between the terrorist organisation (Hamas) and UNRWA and Israel cannot put up with it,” Yuli Edelstein, a Likud party politician and one of the sponsors of the bill, said in parliament as he presented the proposal.
“There is no place for enemies in the heart of the capital of the Jewish people.”
100,000 civilians trapped in northern Gaza
On Monday, Israeli tanks thrust deeper into two north Gaza towns and a historic refugee camp, trapping around 100,000 civilians, the Palestinian emergency service said, in what the Israeli military said were operations to eliminate regrouping Hamas militants.
The Israeli military said soldiers captured around 100 suspected Hamas militants in a raid into Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Jabalia camp. Hamas and medics have denied any militant presence at the hospital.
The Gaza health ministry said at least 19 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes and bombardment on Monday, 13 of them in the north of the devastated coastal territory.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said around 100,000 people were marooned in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun without medical or food supplies. Reuters could not verify the number independently.
The emergency service said its operations had come to a halt because of the three-week Israeli assault into the north, an area where the military said it had wiped out Hamas combat forces earlier in the year-long war.
Talks led by the US, Egypt and Qatar to broker a ceasefire resumed on Sunday after multiple abortive attempts, with Egypt’s president proposing an initial two-day truce to exchange four Israeli hostages of Hamas for some Palestinian prisoners, to be followed by talks within 10 days on a permanent ceasefire.
To date, Israel has repeatedly said the war will go on until Hamas is eradicated while the Islamist movement has ruled out end to fighting until Israeli forces leave Gaza.
Gaza’s war has kindled wider conflict in the Middle East, raising concern about global oil supplies, with Israel carrying out bombings across Lebanon and sending forces into its south in an offensive to disable Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas.
It has also triggered rare direct clashes between regional arch-foes Israel and Iran. Over the weekend, Israeli warplanes targeted missile production sites in Iran in retaliation for the large-scale missile attack on Israel on 1 October.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday it would “use all available tools” to respond to Israel’s weekend attack.
Israel bombs Tyre in south Lebanon, seven dead
Israel continued battering Lebanon on Monday, including an early-morning airstrike on a district in the southern port of Tyre that left seven dead, the Lebanese health ministry said.
The Israeli military later issued an evacuation order for large swathes of Tyre, including areas that had not been previously asked to evacuate and that included neighbourhoods near a seaside hotel where journalists are usually based.
Israel’s expanding evacuation warnings have turned much of southern Lebanon, including Tyre, into ghost towns, while the bombing campaign has left many border towns in ruins. Source: Getty / Kawnat Haju
In an update, the Israeli military said it bombed Hezbollah anti-tank missile depots and other arms assets in Tyre for the second time in several days.
Israel’s expanding evacuation warnings have made ghost towns out of much of southern Lebanon, including Tyre, and the bombing campaign has left many towns along the border in ruins.
Hezbollah carried out a string of attacks on Israeli troops within Lebanese territory and on military targets within Israel. It said it had struck a military equipment factory south-east of Acre, but there were no reports of damage or casualties.
North Gaza was the first part of the enclave to be hammered by Israel’s ground offensive after Hamas’ cross-border attack on October 7 last year, with intensive bombing largely flattening towns.
Nevertheless, Hamas-led militants continue to attack Israeli forces in hit-and-run operations.
Hamas’ 2023 attack killed 1,200 people and resulted in more than 250 hostages being taken into Gaza, per Israeli tallies.
The death toll from Israel’s retaliatory air and ground onslaught in Gaza has reached 43,020, the Gaza health ministry said in an update on Monday.
