The United Nations Secretary-General has warned Israel that it could face referral to the International Court of Justice in The Hague if recent legislative measures against the UN agency for Palestinian refugees are not reversed, escalating tensions between the UN and the Israeli government over humanitarian operations.
The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Israel in a letter that the country could be referred to the International Court of Justice if laws targeting the UNRWA are not repealed and if resources and property seized from the agency are not returned.
In the letter, dated January 8 and addressed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Guterres stresses that the United Nations cannot remain indifferent to Israel’s actions, which he says “directly contravene Israel’s obligations under international law” and “must be reversed without delay”.
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed legislation in October 2024 explicitly banning UNRWA from operating in the country and prohibiting any contact between public officials and the agency. The law was amended last month to include measures cutting electricity and water supplies to UNRWA facilities.
Israeli authorities also proceeded last month with the seizure of UNRWA offices in East Jerusalem.
The United Nations considers East Jerusalem to be Palestinian territory occupied by Israel. Israeli authorities, for their part, have declared the entire city Israel’s “eternal and indivisible” capital and have proclaimed its annexation.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon downplayed Guterres’ letter to Netanyahu.
“We were not concerned by the Secretary-General’s threats,” Danon said. “Instead of addressing the proven involvement of UNRWA personnel in terrorism, the Secretary-General chooses to threaten Israel. This is not a defence of international law; it is a defence of an organisation tainted by terrorism,” he added.
The Israeli government has for years criticised UNRWA, which was established by a UN General Assembly resolution in 1949 following the war that accompanied the creation of the State of Israel. The agency provides humanitarian assistance, healthcare and education services to millions of Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
The United Nations has acknowledged that nine UNRWA staff members may indeed have been involved in the October 7, 2023 attack launched by Hamas against southern Israel, which triggered the war in the Gaza Strip. Those individuals were dismissed from the agency. It was also confirmed that a Hamas official killed by Israeli forces in Lebanon in September 2025 had been employed by UNRWA.
The UN has committed to thoroughly investigating all allegations and has repeatedly asked Israel to provide any evidence it holds, stressing, however, that no supporting material has been submitted.
Senior UN officials and the Security Council have repeatedly underlined that UNRWA constitutes the backbone of the aid distribution mechanism in Gaza, where two years of war have caused a humanitarian catastrophe.
The International Criminal Court, the UN’s top judicial body, issued a provisional, non-binding advisory opinion in October stressing that Israel, as an occupying power, has an obligation to ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip are met.
The opinion was requested by the UN General Assembly. Such advisory opinions carry legal and political weight but are not legally binding. More broadly, the judicial bodies of the United Nations do not possess enforcement mechanisms to compel compliance with their rulings.