EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Thursday criticized a bill passed in the Knesset this week outlawing UNRWA, the UN agency for “Palestinian refugees”, calling it nonsense, Reuters reports.
"Outlawing UNRWA – and labeling it as terrorist, which it is not – amounts to targeting regional stability and human dignity of all those benefiting from the UN agency work", he said on social media platform X.
"We join many partners in urging the Israeli government to halt this nonsense," added Borrell.
His comments come after the Knesset on Monday approved the first reading of a bill declaring UNRWA a terrorist organization and proposing to sever relations.
UNRWA has come under fire over allegations of cooperation with Hamas. Israel said in January that 12 UNRWA staff participated in the October 7 Hamas attacks. In the weeks that followed, numerous donor states suspended or paused some $450 million in funding to UNRWA.
Some of those countries, including Germany, Sweden, Canada, Japan, Norway and Austria, have since resumed funding to the agency.
Israel said that the UNRWA workers who participated in the Hamas massacre kidnapped a woman, handed out ammunition and actively taking part in the massacre at Kibbutz Be’eri, where 97 people were murdered.
After Israel presented the accusations against the UNRWA staff, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced the creation of a review group, headed by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, to look into the Israeli allegations.
The group recently released its report which found neutrality-related issues" in UNRWA but also claimed that Israel had yet to provide evidence for allegations that a significant number of its staff were members of terrorist organizations.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini has resisted Israel’s calls for him to step down, has insisted he had no knowledge of how deep Hamas is involved in UNRWA, and has instead continued to level accusations at Israel.