The United Nations Palestinian aid agency UNRWA said on Thursday that its operations in Gaza and the West Bank were ongoing despite an Israeli ban.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, said that UNRWA is continuing to provide aid to the communities it serves and its clinics across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are open.
Humanitarian operations in Gaza are also continuing, he added.
According to the Israeli ban, UNRWA should have ceased its operations on Thursday.
Israel moved to bar the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from working on Israeli territory and Israeli officials from cooperating with the organization after alleging that some of its employees were involved in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks that sparked the Gaza war.
This raised fears that the agency may struggle or even find it impossible to provide aid to the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The UN appeared to suggest that Israel had not yet begun to enforce the ban.
“The building continues to fly the UN flag,” Dujarric said.
He added that about two dozen international aid workers had left for Jordan because their visas had expired, but local staff were working in other parts of the West Bank.
“My understanding is that the headquarter building is empty of staff,” he said.
Dujarric said officers from a local security company were still guarding the building, but all computers and documents had been moved to a safe location.
