GAZA – Hamas has warned that the United States and Israel are pursuing a coordinated campaign to dismantle the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), describing the latest bill introduced in the U.S. Congress as part of broader efforts to eliminate the agency’s mandate and strip Palestinian refugees of their internationally recognized rights.
In a statement issued on Saturday, Ali Baraka, head of Hamas’ National Relations Department Abroad, said the proposed legislation represents “another step in a systematic campaign to end UNRWA’s role and absolve the international community of its historical responsibility toward Palestinian refugees.”
“Direct attack” on the right of return
Baraka said the U.S. and Israeli efforts constitute a direct assault on the Palestinian refugee issue and their inalienable right of return to the homes and lands from which they were forcibly displaced during the 1948 Nakba.
He stressed that the campaign violates international law and United Nations resolutions, arguing that attempts to dismantle or replace UNRWA are intended to erase one of the central pillars of the Palestinian cause.
UNRWA’s political and legal significance
Baraka emphasized that UNRWA, established under UN General Assembly Resolution 302 in 1949, is far more than a humanitarian relief agency.
He described the agency as an international witness to the Nakba and a symbol of the international community’s legal, political, and moral responsibility toward millions of Palestinian refugees until the implementation of UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which affirms their right to return to their homes and receive compensation.
According to Baraka, efforts to abolish the agency, curtail its mandate, or transfer its responsibilities to other organizations cannot alter the legal and historical status of Palestinian refugees or extinguish their right of return.
“The right of return remains an individual and collective right that cannot be waived, revoked, or nullified by the passage of time,” he said.
Call to reject U.S. and Israeli pressure
Hamas called on the United Nations, the UN General Assembly, donor countries, and the international community to reject what it described as U.S. and Israeli pressure targeting UNRWA.
The movement urged sustained financial support for the agency to enable it to continue providing education, healthcare, humanitarian relief, and social services to Palestinian refugees throughout its areas of operation, particularly in the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
Appeal for international action
Baraka also called on Arab and Muslim states, human rights organizations, humanitarian institutions, and international solidarity movements to launch a coordinated political, legal, and public campaign to defend UNRWA.
He said preserving the agency is essential to protecting the rights of Palestinian refugees until they are able to exercise their internationally recognized right of return in accordance with UN resolutions, warning that efforts to dismantle the agency form part of wider attempts to erase the Palestinian refugee issue from the international agenda.
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