Peacekeeping is hard enough without first deciding who may hand out the food. The United States-led Board of Peace, the body created to oversee the ceasefire in Gaza and the strip’s eventual reconstruction, declared on Friday that the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees will play no part in either. The decision echoes a longstanding Israeli demand to sideline the agency, which has served as a lifeline for millions of Palestinians, according to Al Jazeera.
The board’s justification is one of standards. It will work only with partners it deems reliable and able to meet the needs of Gaza’s population, it said—and the UN Relief and Works Agency, as UNRWA is formally known, does not meet that bar in its view. The agency employs tens of thousands in Palestinian communities and runs schools, clinics and aid distribution in Gaza; its exclusion would reshape the strip’s relief infrastructure before reconstruction has properly begun.
The reaction from Hamas was swift. The decision is “a complete alignment with the Zionist [Israeli] position”, Hazem Qassem, the group’s spokesperson, said on Saturday. Its aim, he said, was to end UNRWA’s operations, to stop it delivering aid and to nullify the Palestinian right of return—the refugees’ claim, at the core of the agency’s mandate, to return to what is now Israel.
Yet the picture behind the scenes is murkier. Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s former chief, has said the board has in fact met UNRWA officials on multiple occasions, the Associated Press reports. A board official confirmed those meetings to reporters, but insisted the agency’s days are over—though its individual programmes “may persist if they are serving Gazans well”, according to the Los Angeles Times. Exclusion, it appears, does not preclude conversation.
The board is finding other parts of its mandate just as sticky. Israel is still barring entry to the Palestinian committee the board chose to govern the strip, insisting that Hamas must first disarm, AP reports. The committee, for its part, says it needs to be inside Gaza to activate the plans drawn up for it. Add the UNRWA feud, and the board’s blueprint exists mostly on paper.
The deeper argument is about who gets to define reliability in Gaza. To Israel and the board, UNRWA is compromised and must go; to Palestinians and their champions, it is the only institution with the reach to keep the strip fed, schooled and treated, and its removal looks like politics wearing a managerial mask. What is being rebuilt in Gaza is still unclear. Who will be allowed to do the rebuilding is becoming a first casualty of the peace.