The UN’s refugee agency for the Palestinians says the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a recent ruling recognized the fact that “no organization can replace the UNRWA’s role in supporting the people of Gaza.”
UNRWA’s presence remains vital to meeting urgent humanitarian needs across the occupied Palestinian territory, the agency said in a statement on Friday.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini earlier welcomed the ICJ ruling, saying Israel must facilitate the agency’s distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza.
“I welcome the unambiguous ruling by the International Court of Justice today stating that – Israel is under an obligation to agree to & facilitate relief schemes provided by the United Nations & its entities, in particular UNRWA,” Lazzarini said on X.
On Wednesday, the ICJ ordered Israel to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid into the besieged Palestinian region, underscoring its legal obligation as an occupying power to ensure Palestinians have access to essential goods for survival.
ICJ President Yuji Iwasawa further stressed that Israel must “agree to and facilitate relief schemes provided by the United Nations and its entities,” including UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
As part of its findings, the ICJ said that Israel has failed to show evidence that UNRWA was working for the Palestinian resistance group Hamas as the regime had claimed.
“The court finds that Israel has not substantiated its allegations that a significant part of UNRWA’s employees are members of Hamas,” Iwasawa said.
“Israel’s claim that UNRWA is infiltrated by Hamas was not substantiated, nor were allegations that UNRWA is not a neutral organization,” he stated.
Iwasawa added that the humanitarian organization has “huge amounts of food & other life saving supplies on standby in Egypt & Jordan,” and it possesses “the resources and expertise to immediately scale up the humanitarian response in Gaza & help alleviate the suffering of the civilian population.”
The ICJ ruling also said that Israel cannot use starvation as a method of warfare.
In its latest ruling, ICJ said Israel must allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, rejecting its justifications — increasing legal and political pressure on the regime over blatant violations of international law and human rights.
Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has already been saying that Israel is failing to uphold the terms of the Gaza ceasefire agreement by refusing to reopen the crucial Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
The United Nations wants Israel to allow in “more [aid] trucks at more crossing points” to Gaza as aid levels remain far lower than specified by the ceasefire agreement.
WHO calls for all Gaza’s border crossings to open for medical evacuations
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) representative in the Palestinian territory, Rik Peeperkorn on Friday called for all of Gaza’s border crossings to be opened for both the entry of aid and medical evacuations.
“All medical corridors need to be opened,” Peeperkorn, said. He added that corridors should particularly be opened to reach hospitals in the occupied West Bank and East al-Quds.
“It is vital and is the most cost-effective route. If that route opened, it would really be a … game-changer,” he told journalists in Geneva speaking via videolink from occupied al-Quds
According to Peeperkorn, two medical evacuations are planned for next week, but he called for them to happen every day, and said the WHO was ready to take “a minimum of 50 patients per day”.
At the current rate, he explained, evacuating the 15,000 people needing treatment in Gaza, which includes 4,000 children, would drag on for a decade or so.
UN experts say the targeted destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system by the Israel forces amounts to “medicide”.
Israel left a campaign of death and destruction during its two-year-long genocidal war across the blockaded Palestinian territory.
According to Gaza health authorities, the death toll has risen to nearly 68,300 since the Israeli genocidal war began in 2023, with tens of thousands more wounded and missing amid widespread destruction.
IMAGE CREDIT: Palestinians walk through destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on October 24, 2025. File photo
[ SOURCE: PRESS TV and NEWS AGENCIES ]
