If we want peace, Unrwa and Unifil must both be completely reformed

Israel is fighting full-scale wars on two fronts. Hamas continues to control central Gaza and parts of northern Gaza, while Hezbollah continues to control a swathe of southern Lebanon and its terrorists operate in other areas of the country. On November 24, Hezbollah launched 250 rockets at Israel, according to the IDF. In both Gaza and Lebanon the UN was supposed to play a positive role, yet in each place massive UN bureaucracies have ended up shielding terror groups and enabling their growth. Unrwa has not worked against Hamas in Gaza, and Unifil has not fulfilled its mandate to prevent Hezbollah turning southern Lebanon into an armed camp.

Unrwa and Unifil are both massive organisations. Unrwa has more than 150 facilities in Gaza with thousands of personnel, and in Lebanon Unifil has more than 10,000 soldiers and dozens of posts and bases in the south of the country.

For peace to prevail, both Unrwa and Unifil need to have their mandates changed. Unrwa needs to stop letting its facilities be used by Hamas and stop turning the other way as Hamas operates. It needs to be mandated to report on Hamas’ criminal activities. In Lebanon, Unifil needs to fulfil its mandate and stop having its 10,000 soldiers sit behind walls and pretend Hezbollah doesn’t exist.

In Gaza representatives of Unrwa are warning about the coming cold weather in winter and the needs of the civilian population. On November 18, the organisation said that a convoy of 97 aid trucks were “violently looted” with its drivers forced at gunpoint to divert the trucks. As with all things that relates to terrorists with guns in Gaza, Unrwa is doing nothing about the looting. It isn’t asking questions.

In Lebanon on November 17, Unifil said one of its patrols was fired upon. “The patrol managed to get around the obstruction and continued along its planned route. About an hour later, when the patrol had just crossed the village of Maarakeh, it was fired upon about 40 times from behind, likely from non-state actor members.” “Non-state actors” is one of the terms used by the UN for Hezbollah. In Gaza, Hamas is often referred to the same way, or as an “armed group”. This terminology is used to hide the presence of terrorists so that the name “Hezbollah” and “Hamas” never ends up in an official report. If one wants to go back and look for the crimes of Hamas and Hezbollah one won’t find them mentioned. Instead one will find the nebulous and generalised terms “armed groups” and “non-state actors”.

Hamas and Hezbollah are not just “armed groups” operating in some chaotic landscape where there is no governance. Hamas illegally took over Gaza in 2007. It is the governing authority. Hamas decides everything in Gaza. Even after more than a year of war, Hamas is in charge in most of Gaza. This includes the central camps area, four urban areas built around Unrwa camps in Maghazi, Deir al-Balah, Bureij and Nuseirat. What remains of Hamas command and control in Gaza is closely linked to the areas where Unrwa operates.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah is the authority south of the Litani river. The map of the 1,000 square km where Unifil operates is basically the same map of the area where Hezbollah has control. In other areas of Lebanon Hezbollah operates more quietly, in the Bekaa Valley and Dahieh in Beirut. The overlap between Unifil and Hezbollah and Unrwa and Hamas control is not an accident. This overlap is built into these institutions. Unrwa was founded in 1949 and Unifil in 1978. However, the emergence of Hamas control of Gaza in 2007 and Hezbollah’s return to southern Lebanon after the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006 are both directly linked to the decision by Unrwa and Unifil not to play a positive role in reducing terror and helping civilians.

Hamas feeds off Unrwa. Not only does it confiscate humanitarian aid and levy taxes on Gazans to fuel its war machine, it hides among UN facilities. Hamas systematically uses UN facilities, schools, hospitals and civilian shelters in Gaza. This is not hard for the UN organisations to detect and monitor. If there is a school for civilians and one floor is occupied by armed men, any organisation running the school would know about their presence. The UN has systematically made sure to cut this out of the mandate of Unrwa.

Hamas grew exponentially more powerful after 2007 by outsourcing civilian needs to Unrwa and various NGOs. While those groups fed and educated people, Hamas built command centres under Unrwa facilities and infiltrated hospitals. Despite Hamas bringing war on Gaza every year or two after 2007, the international community never acted to weaken Hamas and prevent it exploiting the presence of Unrwa and other humanitarian bodies. Instead a symbiotic relationship was enabled. While the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank had to take responsibility for civilians, in Gaza Hamas prepared for war while Unrwa and others took care of civilians. This enabled war, rather than reducing the incentive for Hamas to carry out attacks such as the October 7 massacre.

In Lebanon a similar process unfolded after 2007. Unifil was supposed to work with the Lebanese army to make sure Hezbollah did not return to southern Lebanon. Instead Hezbollah grew ever more powerful. Hezbollah expanded its arsenal from around 13,000 rockets in 2006 to 150,000 by 2023. All this occurred under the eyes of Unifil. Instead of fulfilling UN Resolution 1701, which was supposed to prevent Hezbollah returning to threaten Israel, Unifil appears to have done less after 2006 than it did before the war.

In essence, the UN took control of southern Lebanon and Gaza as two colonies on the border of Israel and in each an Iranian-backed proxy force emerged as a powerful army. Hamas on October 7 and Hezbollah on the same day were more powerful than many nations. Most countries don’t have 150,000 rockets. There is no other conclusion that can be drawn from the disastrous experience of 2006-2023 than seeing the UN’s role in Gaza and Lebanon as being directly entwined with the rise of Hamas and Hezbollah.

Israel’s new defence minister Israel Katz spoke to the UN special envoy to Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, on November 26. “We demand effective enforcement from Unifil, every house in southern Lebanon that is rebuilt and a terrorist base is established in it will be demolished, every terrorist will be attacked, every attempt to smuggle weapons will be thwarted,” he said. It’s time for the international community to ensure the UN mandates in Gaza and Lebanon change. The UN needs to focus on preventing Hamas and Hezbollah rule. Only then can civilians live in peace in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon.