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Relations between Israel and the United Nations have hit a new low point after almost two months of war. The international organization, vital for proing aid to Palestinians for decades, said last week that Israel had refused to grant a visa to a top humanitarian official. Israeli officials have repeated their calls for U.N. Secretary General António Guterres to resign, while an allegation that a U.N. staff member helped hold Israeli hostages has led to further furor. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees denied the claim.
Israeli anger at the U.N. was on display at the latter’s headquarters in New York on Monday, as victims, activists and diplomats argued that the U.N. had ignored the issue of rapes committed by Hamas fighters during the Oct. 7 attacks. Sheryl Sandberg, the former Meta executive and one of the organizers of the event, called on “global political leaders to step up” and say clearly that rape was “unacceptable.”
Critics denounced U.N. Women, an organization within the U.N. system that deals with gender inequality, for how the organization took more than two months after the Oct. 7 attacks to issue its statement acknowledging accounts of rape and other sexual violence. Israeli experts on sexual violence say that they pushed the U.N. weeks ago to condemn Hamas’s use of rape. “This took them too long, much too long,” Israeli legal scholar Ruth Halperin-Kaddari told the BBC of the U.N. Women statement.
“Sadly the very international bodies that are supposedly the defenders of all women showed that when it comes to Israelis, indifference is acceptable,” said Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. “Their silence has been deafening.”
This breakdown in relations comes at a crucial time, just as the United Nations is called on to do more to aid civilians in Gaza as warfare resumes. While often portrayed as ineffectual because of the geopolitical disputes between its member states at the General Assembly and the Security Council, the institution of the U.N. plays an irreplaceable role on the ground with its staff at considerable risk.
A plethora of U.N. agencies are working to help civilians in Gaza, including familiar ones like the World Health Organization and the World Food Program, to more specialized ones like the United Nations Mine Action Service, which works to clear explosives from war zones.
Israel and the U.N. have rarely enjoyed a good relationship throughout history, but the scale of the die at present may be a new nadir. Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal in the top U.N. job since 2017, ignited fury in October when he suggested that the deadly Hamas attack on Israel “did not happen in a vacuum,” prompting Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen to call for his resignation (Guterres later expressed shock at what he said was a misinterpretation of his comments).
Then, last month, Israel’s Foreign Ministry singled out Lynn Hastings, a veteran U.N. official who served as humanitarian coordinator, for what was dubbed “dangerous rhetoric” in a shared on social media. The U.N. later said that her visa was not being renewed by Israeli authorities.
But the most damning criticism has been reserved for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which is the largest aid agency in Gaza. Last week, Israeli reporter Almog Boker posted on social media alleging that one Israeli hostage claimed to have been held by a “UNRWA teacher” for nearly 50 days. In response, UNRWA said it had asked for more information on what it considered a “very serious allegation” and said that unless Boker proed eence, he should delete the claim.
“Defamation attacks and the spread of misinformation about UNRWA — from any side — directly endanger the lifesaving operations of the Agency and its staff operating on the ground,” the agency said in a statement.
Israel’s push into south Gaza sees a school bombed, a hospital overwhelmed
There could be serious implications for the United Nations. The body may have an enormous footprint in crisis areas and logistical capabilities that few countries can match, but doing so comes at a major cost. In September, before the outbreak of war in Gaza, the U.N. said global funding requirements for humanitarian needs had hit $55 billion with 250 million people — but warned less than 30 percent of that funding had so far been met.
In addition to being an unavoidable factor on the ground in Gaza, Israel is also a member of the U.N. and helps to fund it. Even more relevant to funding is the United States, still the biggest donor to the U.N. in raw financial terms and a key diplomatic ally of Israel.
Congressional Republicans have pushed to cut U.S. funding to UNRWA, which is funded on a voluntary basis by donor states. The United States was the largest donor in 2021, according to the organization, with a total contribution of over $338 million. Some U.S. lawmakers have called for U.S. funding to UNRWA to be cut completely, as it was during the Trump administration.
“Not one more U.S. taxpayer dollar should go towards funding UNRWA,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) told Fox News on Monday, adding that it was an “antisemitic organization” and that the United Nations was “complicit in Hamas’s terrorism.”
The backlash isn’t limited to America’s right. More than 80 members of Congress signed a bipartisan letter to U.N. Women released last week that called on the agency to “condemn Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians in no uncertain terms” to “maintain its credibility,” with high-profile Democrats like Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) among the signatories.
Any cuts to U.N. funding would come at a time of historic need. Even before the Oct. 7 attacks, UNRWA had warned of a budget crisis that could lead it to make cuts to services. By Oct. 15, UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said that the United Nations was “on the verge of collapse” in Gaza. Even critics of U.N. action in Gaza would have to wonder: If it goes, what else could take its place?
