On Oct. 28, the Israeli Knesset voted to ban any activity by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees and to prohibit official contact with it, to be implemented in three months.

As former United Nations staff members, we are appalled but not surprised.

For decades, Israel has been on the warpath against UNRWA and the United Nations as a whole, accusing the multilateral body, and any of its members who criticize its conduct, of anti-Israel bias. Israel has not complied with U.N. General Assembly or Security Council resolutions, and has derided decisions and advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice. It has never cooperated with U.N. human rights envoys or commissions of inquiry. Just a month ago, Netanyahu arrogantly called the U.N. a “swamp of antisemitic bile.” In an unprecedented move, Israel has even declared the U.N. secretary-general himself persona non grata.

Israel has long accused UNRWA of perpetuating the Palestinian refugee situation through its maintenance of refugee camps, and its registration process that offers some form of identity and legal status. In its arrogance, it appears to believe that, by banning UNRWA, it can be rid of the Palestinian refugee issue as a whole.

But UNRWA does not perpetuate anything on its own accord. It simply implements the mandate given it by the General Assembly of the United Nations, which created it in 1949, after the new Israeli state refused to allow the Palestinian refugees back to their homes.

Rather, Palestinian statelessness and refugee status is perpetuated by Israel’s occupation of what remains of Palestine, and by the continuing displacement of the Palestinian people going on today in Gaza, in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

Gaza is a refugee ghetto: of its total population of around two million Palestinians, over 70% are registered refugees, some 1.5 million. This is not the first time Hamas and Israel have fought, but it has been the most brutal by far for civilians. In more quiet times, UNRWA’s 14,000 staff members in Gaza run schools, hospitals, training centers and social relief services.

In emergencies, as now, they are the lifeline for the provision and distribution of basic aid. In the past year, some 44,000 Gazans have been killed and untold thousands remain under the rubble, while thousands more are maimed, starved and made homeless. UNRWA’s schools and warehouses have become makeshift shelters. Horrifically, some 70% of those shelters have been bombed, almost all filled with desperate families. No other agency has built the infrastructure and staff capacity to handle even the trickle of aid that Israel lets into Gaza, aid that is already not sufficient to stave off starvation and disease.

Israel has never been held accountable for its contemptuous treatment of the U.N., not to mention its disregard for civilian life. As of December 2023, the U.S. had used its veto power 45 times to protect Israel and shield it from accountability for violations of international law and the U.N. Charter. This has empowered it to act with impunity and brute force with no regard for human rights or humanitarian law, let alone for its obligations as a member-state of the United Nations. If these recently passed bills are implemented at the end of the slated 90 days, then Israel’s membership in the United Nations must be seen as moot.

UNRWA may well survive this Israeli measure, but the people of Gaza may not, and more suffering will be heaped upon the Palestinians in the West Bank, including Jerusalem.

What may also not survive is the reputation of the United States, already in tatters. Despite its vacuous commitment to humanitarian aid and to multilateralism, the U.S. is increasingly isolated as the lone supporter of a brutal regime that cares not a whit for international cooperation.