UN shifts responsibility to Israel for replacing UNRWA

The United Nations responded to Israel's decision to cut ties with the Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA) by saying it has no responsibility to replace the agency's operations in Gaza and the West Bank, signaling it was Israel's problem as the occupying power, according to a letter excerpt seen by Reuters.

Under a new law, Israel ended a 1967 cooperation agreement with UNRWA that covered the protection, movement and diplomatic immunity of the agency. The law will also ban UNRWA's operations in Israel from late January.

UNRWA has said that its operations in Gaza and the West Bank are now at risk of collapse. "I would note, as a general point, that it is not our responsibility to replace UNRWA, nor do we have the capacity to do so," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' chef de cabinet, Courtenay Rattray, wrote to a senior Israeli foreign affairs official late on Tuesday.

The mention of responsibility is a veiled reference to Israel's obligations as an occupying power.

The UN views Gaza and the West Bank as Israeli-occupied territory. International humanitarian law requires an occupying power to agree to relief programs for people in need and to facilitate them "by all the means at its disposal" and ensure food, medical care, hygiene and public health standards.

Israel's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Rattray's letter.

Top UN officials and the Security Council describe UNRWA as the backbone of the aid response in Gaza, where Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas have been at war for the past year, leaving the enclave in ruins and on the brink of famine.