Two bills passed in the Israeli Knesset on Monday ban the UN relief and works agency (Unrwa) from operating in Israeli territory and prohibit Israeli authorities from any contact with the agency (Israeli parliament votes to ban Unrwa from Israel within 90 days, 28 October). The legislation will stop all Unrwa’s operations in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, where it provides education and health services to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. It will also severely restrict Unrwa activities in the Gaza Strip, where the agency depends on coordination with Israel to provide humanitarian aid.
This legislation blitz comes on top of an existing health crisis in the West Bank, related to the Palestinian Authority’s fiscal crisis with Israel’s withholding of tax revenues, to the suspension of 40%-50% of travel permits for medical care within Israel since 7 October 2023, and also related to the decrease in Israel-provided healthcare in the West Bank.
As Israeli physicians who have long treated Palestinian patients in Israel and in volunteer-run clinics in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – with the aid of humanitarian organisations such as Unrwa – and who can no longer contact the organisation or get medications or medical supplies for our patients, we feel it is necessary we speak out against this blatant injustice.
Importantly, numerous Israeli physicians and medical personnel have recently co-signed a support letter for the American medical professionals who are against the ongoing health crisis in Gaza, and sent it directly to the White House, urging Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to stop the disaster in Gaza.
The Israeli legislation scheme against Unrwa is going to annihilate healthcare in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, on top of the unbearable catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.
Michal Feldon Paediatric rheumatologist, Daphna Shochat Endocrinologist
Tel Aviv, Israel
