Israel's UNRWA ban, humanitarian obligations under scrutiny in Hague hearings
LONDON -- Israel’s humanitarian aid obligations in Gaza and its ban on UNRWA, the United Nations agency that provides civil and medical services to Palestinian refugees, are under examination in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as a week of hearings began on Monday.
Forty countries and four international organizations are set to participate in the oral proceedings, the court has said.
The weeklong hearing comes after the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) voted to request an advisory opinion from the ICJ concerning “the obligations of Israel in relation to the presence and activities of the United Nations, other international organizations and third States.” The United States, Israel’s close international ally, was one of 12 countries to vote against the request.
The court will evaluate the legality of Israel’s decision to ban UNRWA, the U.N.’s Relief and Works’ Agency, the dedicated U.N. body to support Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. It will then issue an advisory opinion, which has been requested by the UNGA, and which will be legally nonbinding. The ICJ’s ruling will not be legally binding, however, but could add to mounting pressure on Israel to reopen the Gaza crossings for aid deliveries.
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, voted to ban UNRWA from operating in Gaza and the West Bank in October 2024. Israel’s government has long accused UNRWA of turning a blind eye to employees who support or belong to Hamas, the militant organization that led a terror attack on Israel in October 2023. UNRWA denies those claims. The ban came into effect at the end of January 2025. UNRWA is the main distributor of aid within Gaza.
Israel has long maintained that humanitarian aid has been looted by Hamas. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says the ban on aid into Gaza is designed to pressure Hamas to release 59 hostages, including one American who is presumed to be alive.
UNRWA Commissioner General Phillipe Lazzarini issued a statement saying he “welcome[d]” the ICJ hearing and that the agency worked in Palestinian territories to “address overwhelming needs.”
Those needs have become more acute since Israel blocked the flow of all goods into Gaza on March 2, international aid organizations said. The World Food Programme said on April 24 that its warehouses had run out of flour in Gaza, and warned the “situation inside the Gaza Strip has once again reached a breaking point.”
“#Gaza: children are starving,” Lazzarini posted on X over the weekend. “The Government of Israel continues to block the entry of food + other basics. A manmade & politically motivated starvation. Nearly two months of siege. Calls to bring in supplies are going unheeded.”
Israel has submitted a written defense to the court, but it declined to send a legal representative to The Hague court proceedings. Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, said that Israel would not be attending the court in person, describing the proceedings as a “circus.”
“The goal is to deprive Israel of its most basic right to defend itself,” he said at a press conference that coincided with the start of the ICJ hearings. “It is not Israel that should be on trial. It is the U.N. and UNRWA. The U.N. has become a rotten, anti-Israel, and antisemitic body.”
Ammar Hijazi, the Palestinian ambassador to the Netherlands, accused Israel of breaching international law on the first day of the oral hearings on Monday.
“Israel is starving, killing and displacing Palestinians while also targeting and blocking humanitarian organizations trying to save their lives,” he said.
This week’s hearings mark the latest legal pressure placed on Israel since the war in Gaza began after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack. Last July the ICJ issued an advisory opinion ruling Israel’s occupation of the West Bank to be illegal under international law, and a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide is still ongoing. Israel has rejected the ruling and the allegation of genocide.
Over 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage into Gaza in the Hamas-led assault on Israel of Oct. 7. More than 52,000 people have been killed in Gaza have been killed during Israel’s retaliatory military campaign response, with more than 2,000 killed since the latest ceasefire broke down on March 18, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
