UN chief warns he could refer Israel to ICJ over laws targetting UNRWA

In October 2024, Israel passed a law banning the agency for Palestinian refugees in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem.UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during the General Debate of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York City [File: Angela Weiss/AP]Published On 13 Jan 2026United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he could take his country to the International Court of Justice if it does not repeal laws targeting the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) and return its seized assets and property.In a January 8 letter to Netanyahu, Guterres said the UN cannot remain indifferent to “actions taken by Israel, which are in direct contravention of the obligations of Israel under international law. They must be reversed without delay.”Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Israel advances ‘fatal’ settlement plan for occupied East Jerusalemlist 2 of 3‘We just sit and cry’: Gaza’s cancer patients die waiting for treatmentlist 3 of 3Israeli strikes kill Palestinians across Gazaend of listIsrael’s parliament passed a law in October 2024 banning UNRWA from operating in Israel and prohibiting Israeli officials from having contact with the agency. It then amended the law last month to ban electricity or water to UNRWA facilities.Israeli authorities also seized UNRWA’s occupied East Jerusalem offices last month. The UN considers East Jerusalem occupied by Israel. Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be part of the country.Guterres said that UNRWA is “an integral part of the United Nations”, and highlighted that “Israel remains under an obligation to accord UNRWA and its personnel the privileges and immunities specified in the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN”.The convention states that “the premises of the United Nations shall be inviolable”.Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, dismissed Guterres’s letter to Netanyahu.“We are not fazed by the Secretary-General’s threats,” Danon said in a post on X on Tuesday.“Instead of dealing with the undeniable involvement of UNRWA personnel in terrorism, the Secretary-General chooses to threaten Israel. This is not defending international law, this is defending an organization marred by terrorism,” he added.Israel has long sought the dissolution of UNRWA, which was created by the UN General Assembly in 1949 following the war surrounding the founding of Israel. It has since provided aid, health and education to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.Israel has alleged that a dozen of the agency’s employees were involved in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, in which 1,139 people were killed, and about 240 were taken into Gaza as captives.In response to the attack, Israel launched a devastating genocidal war against the Palestinian people of Gaza, killing more than 71,400, according to Gaza’s health authorities.The UN has said that nine UNRWA staff who may have been involved in the Hamas-led attack on Israel have been fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon, killed in September by Israel, was also found to have had a UNRWA job.The UN has also promised to investigate all accusations made against UNRWA, and has repeatedly asked Israel for evidence, which it says has not been provided.According to a January 5 UN report, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed 382 UNRWA employees in the enclave, which is the highest number of UN casualties since the world body was founded in 1945. Some have been killed in Israel’s deliberate, repeated attacks on UNRWA hospitals and schools, which shelter more than one million displaced Palestinians in Gaza.Top UN officials and the UN Security Council have described UNRWA as the backbone of the aid response in Gaza, where Israel’s war has unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe.In October 2025, the ICJ reiterated Israel’s obligation to ensure full respect for the privileges and immunities accorded to the UN, including UNRWA and its personnel, and said Israel should ensure the basic needs of the civilian population in Gaza are met.The ICJ opinion was requested by the 193-member UN General Assembly.Advisory opinions of the ICJ, also known as the World Court, carry legal and political weight, but they are not binding, and the court has no enforcement power.