• Israel’s Parliament (Knesset) has banned the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) from operating in the country, effective in 90 days.

• The ban has sparked international condemnation and raised questions about the legality of Israel's decision.

• Virtually the entire population of the Gaza Strip depends on humanitarian assistance, with UNRWA as the “backbone” of UN’s relief efforts in the war-ravaged enclave.

• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said Israel’s ban on UNRWA, if implemented, would violate international law, the founding UN Charter and the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, adopted by the General Assembly in 1946.

• UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said the decision will only deepen the suffering of Palestinians, especially in Gaza where people have been going through more than a year of sheer hell.

What is the purpose of UNRWA?

• Created in December 1949, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a relief and human development agency which supports more than five million registered Palestinian refugees, and their patrilineal descendants, who fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 Palestine war as well as those who fled or were expelled during and following the 1967 Six Day war.

• The UNRWA has been providing health, education, relief and social services, as well as emergency humanitarian assistance, across its five fields of operation — Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and the Gaza Strip — since 1950. 

• It also provided relief to Jewish and Arab Palestine refugees inside the State of Israel following the 1948 conflict until the Israeli government took over responsibility for Jewish refugees in 1952.

• In the absence of a solution to the Palestine refugee problem, the UN General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA’s mandate.

• The refugees and their descendants number about six million, and in Gaza they are the majority of the population. 

• In the past year, UNRWA has sought to aid civilians caught up in Israel’s war against Hamas militants in the enclave, where many of the 2.3 million people are suffering from a lack of shelter, food and medical care.

• Almost all funding comes from voluntary contributions, and mostly from donor states.

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