WHO raises alarm over UNRWA ban

Israel's disregard of international law, with its ban of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, would only further endanger the country, the World Health Organization warned on Monday.

"There is simply no alternative to UNRWA," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X, echoing an earlier plea by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The ban "will not make Israel safer", Tedros wrote. "It will only deepen the suffering of the people of Gaza and increase the risk of disease outbreaks and other health issues."

The remarks came after Jacob Blitshtein, director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, notified Guterres that Israel was withdrawing from the agreement regulating UNRWA operations in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, citing the organization's "involvement in terrorism".

Last week, the Israeli parliament passed a bill banning UNRWA, which will go into effect after a three-month period.

Relations between Israel and the United Nations have turned increasingly sour after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct 7 last year, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed 43,391 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health ministry figures.

Israel's military issued new evacuation orders in northern Gaza on Tuesday after carrying out strikes across the enclave, which Palestinian media and medics said had killed at least 30 people.

Last week, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the West Bank and Gaza, said the Israeli violence was not happening in a vacuum "but is part of a long-term intentional, systematic and state-organized forced displacement, intended to erase the Palestinians from their own land and allow Israel to fully annex Palestinian territory".

The plans are now expanding to Lebanon, she added.

Israeli curbs

Some independent UN experts have complained about Israeli restrictions when conducting a probe into Israel's actions in Gaza, particularly its attack on medical facilities and medical workers, as well as children and women.

Muslim Imran, director of the Asia Middle East Center for Research and Dialogue in Malaysia, said, "Without the UN partition plan and the support Israel got in the UN, the whole state of Israel wouldn't have the legal basis to emerge as a new nation-state.

"A few generations later, Israeli leaders having this arrogant attitude toward the UN means they are dismantling the few bases of the few elements of international legitimacy that they used to claim to have," he said.

Such an attitude would only deepen its isolation on the global stage, he added.

Meanwhile, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Monday his country has prepared a draft resolution for the UN General Assembly, which proposes the removal of Israel's UN membership, "should there be a violation of laws, rules and decisions in issues involving Palestine", the Anadolu news agency reported.

Imran described the move as "a very logical development because Malaysia (and) many countries of the Global South have grown frustrated with Israel's disrespect of international law and disregard for international resolutions and UN agencies".

The initiative by Anwar "reflects this realization that no one should be entitled and above international law", he said.

"No country should have the freedom to violate international resolutions and laws without consequences."

Agencies contributed to this story.