BALATA CAMP, West Bank— Saeed Hashash , a father of four, was connected to a dialysis machine when he learned that Israel had passed laws that would halt the operations of the agency that pays for his kidney treatment.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or Unrwa, is the largest aid organization operating in the Palestinian territories. It has about a month left before it is paralyzed by new Israeli legislation.
“This is life or death,” said his wife, Rashida Hashash , sitting beside him in their small Balata home. “We are fully reliant on Unrwa.”
The 75-year-old agency was established shortly after the founding of the state of Israel and the United Nations. It provides Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with a crucial safety net of food, medicine and education, operating nearly 100 schools and dozens of health facilities in the West Bank alone.
But Unrwa and Israel have long been at odds about the role that the agency plays in the Palestinian territories.
Israel stepped up its criticism of the agency in the wake of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, accusing at least 12 Unrwa workers of participating in the assault on southern Israel. Israel later accused Unrwa of employing hundreds of Palestinians with links to Hamas and other militant groups, which Unrwa says it hasn’t received evidence of.
The agency fired several employees and investigated others for alleged links to Hamas in the wake of the attacks. Unrwa said it has long shared the names and functions of all staff members annually with Israel, including the names of the people Israel has made allegations against.
In October, Israel’s Parliament passed laws that will effectively prevent Unrwa from operating in the West Bank or Gaza Strip beyond the end of January. The provisions would cut the agency off from access to Israeli entrance permits into Gaza and the West Bank. They would also end coordination with the Israeli military, which Unrwa relies on to ferry staff and aid around Gaza.
The impact of Israel’s laws, if implemented, could have far-reaching consequences. In the West Bank, it could deepen an economic crisis and risk political instability. In Gaza, it could dismantle a logistical aid network led by Unrwa, choking the flow of humanitarian aid into a territory devastated by conflict and hunger.
“If these bills are implemented as intended it would change the parameters for the future peace process,” said Roland Friedrich , director of Unrwa affairs in the West Bank.
Israeli politicians have said the agency has a bias against Israel; creates a welfare network discouraging Palestinians from leaving camps; and keeps alive hopes among Palestinians that they can return to the homes their families fled or were forced to leave.
Dan Illouz , a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ’s Likud party, said Unrwa “perpetuates the refugee status of the Palestinians, with the clear purpose of creating constant friction.” Israeli minister Sharren Haskel said Unrwa was the cornerstone of conflict in Israel, in part because it perpetuates people’s identity as refugees.
The number of displaced people and their descendants living on the small plots of land housing Unrwa’s 19 camps in the West Bank has ballooned. Poorly constructed concrete buildings have replaced the original tents the refugees lived in, as a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has remained elusive.
Balata was established in 1950 to house about 5,000 Palestinian refugees, many of whom were forced to leave Jaffa, an old Arab coastal population center now part of metropolitan Tel Aviv. The camp sits near the biblical holy sites of Joseph’s Tomb and Jacob’s Well in the northern West Bank. It is about one-tenth of a square mile—and densely inhabited with a registered population of more than 33,000. Its narrow streets, confined by buildings crowded together, are dark even in the daytime.
Almost two-thirds of Balata’s population is under 25 . Unemployment is estimated at over 60%, according to local officials from Unrwa and the Palestine Liberation Organization, the internationally recognized external-facing representative of the Palestinian people. Some residents say they would leave if they could afford to, while others say they remain to maintain their identities as refugees.
Unrwa educates thousands of children at four schools in Balata, cares for tens of thousands of Palestinians at a local health center, employs around 200 people and gives cash assistance to thousands of residents.
The Hashash family lives in a neighborhood that bears their name. The family came to the camp around the time of its founding. “Unrwa’s possible disappearance is all anyone can talk about here,” Saeed Hashash said.
Hashash, who is 30 years old, said his kidney disease forced him to give up his job stocking produce in the market in Balata. He said his family now depends on Unrwa for medicine, food and education, and doesn’t know what it will do if Unrwa is sidelined. “We aren’t talking about preparations, because how can we?” Hashash said.
There is no obvious substitute for Unrwa in the West Bank, where the agency has an annual budget of roughly $125 million. Neither Israel nor the U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority, which governs part of the West Bank, has a significant role in the camps beyond security .
Nablus, the district in which Balata camp sits, is governed by the Palestinian Authority , which would be further strained by having to support people currently reliant on Unrwa. The Palestinian Authority is projected to face a nearly $2 billion budget deficit this year, including millions in tax dollars withheld by Israel, which has said some of those funds are used to promote militancy by providing welfare to the families of Palestinians killed or imprisoned by Israel, including militants.
The Palestinian Authority runs its own public schools in the West Bank and has been struggling to pay for them for years, raising doubts about the system’s ability to absorb Unrwa schools. Teachers say they are underpaid. They have staged regular walkouts from classes that, in some cases, exceed 50 pupils. School weeks have been shortened to four days because teachers say they can’t afford transportation, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Education.
The Israeli Finance Ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment, and the Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment.
“If Unrwa is forced to stop work, no one will be able to take over our services,” said Dr. Haytham Abu Aita , head of the agency’s Balata health center, the largest it runs in the West Bank. “The Palestinian Authority doesn’t have the resources, and other U.N. agencies don’t have the know-how or history running health clinics the way we do.”
About half of Unrwa’s prewar budget went toward education and schools, which some Israeli politicians have said use teaching materials that contribute to a bias against Israel and promote terror among Palestinians. Unrwa, which also works in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, said it uses the national curriculum wherever it operates and that it offers teachers guidance for handling potentially problematic content.
“When it comes to Palestinian Authority textbooks, Unrwa refers systematically to U.N. positions on issues such as the occupation, borders, the wall, and others,” the agency said. “Unrwa is not in a position to—nor it is mandated to—reconcile the Israeli and Palestinian narratives.”
The U.N. warns that if Unrwa can’t operate in the occupied Palestinian territories, the responsibility under international law to provide services to Palestinian refugees would lie with Israel as the occupying power.
A three-month strike among Unrwa workers over salaries last year provided a glimpse of what life without the agency might look like. Uncollected trash piled in the streets, bringing rats and disease. At times, residents say they banded together to gather heaps of garbage and collectively paid to have it driven off and disposed of. Some residents say they weren’t able to access health services, and children who should have been in school lingered in the streets. Those in the West Bank during that period staged demonstrations urging the Unrwa employees to return to work.
Amjad Abu Awad , a 51-year-old Balata resident and father of a young daughter with a heart condition, said the strike was a nightmare at the time but the current economic situation would make Unrwa’s permanent loss even more painful.
“I really can’t imagine what will happen,” Awad said.
Write to Omar Abdel-Baqui at omar.abdel-baqui@wsj.com
