ICSPR Launches an Urgent Appeal to Protect the Rights of UNRWA Staff and Warns Against Arbitrary Dismissals Affecting Nearly 600 Employees Who Are Victims of Genocide in Gaza
Date: January 8, 2025
Press Release
ICSPR Launches an Urgent Appeal to Protect the Rights of UNRWA Staff and Warns Against Arbitrary Dismissals Affecting Nearly 600 Employees Who Are Victims of Genocide in Gaza
The International Commission to Support Palestinian People’s Rights (ICSPR) has launched an urgent legal and human rights appeal, calling on the United Nations and its relevant agencies to intervene immediately to protect the rights of employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), at a time when the Agency is facing the most critical phase since its establishment in 1949. This comes amid a systematic political and legal attack led by the Israeli occupation, including the banning of UNRWA’s work, targeting its facilities and staff, undermining its legal mandate, and the deliberate reduction and drying up of international funding, in parallel with an ongoing genocidal war against the Palestinian people, particularly in the Gaza Strip.
ICSPR affirmed that this targeting aims to dismantle UNRWA and undermine its role as an international witness to the Palestinian refugee issue and their inalienable right of return. At the same time, it stressed that exposing the Agency to such attacks does not constitute—legally or morally—any justification for evading its obligations toward Palestinian refugees or its employees. On the contrary, it imposes a heightened duty of protection, commitment, and transparency, especially during times of armed conflict and genocide.
The Commission expressed grave concern and condemnation over UNRWA management’s decision to terminate the contracts of approximately 600 employees, most of whom are educational staff from the Gaza Strip, after placing them on what was termed an “exceptional leave in the interest of the Agency” since March 2025, followed by their collective and immediate dismissal without any legal guarantees or humanitarian protection measures. ICSPR explained that these employees are direct victims of genocide and forcible displacement: many have lost their homes and family members, were forced to leave Gaza in search of minimum safety, and suddenly found themselves without income or social protection.
ICSPR stressed that this decision constitutes a case of collective arbitrary dismissal and a serious violation of international human rights law, International Labour Organization conventions, UNRWA’s internal regulations, and the duty of due protection owed to employees in situations of armed conflict and force majeure. It considered that administratively punishing victims of genocide instead of protecting them is morally and legally shocking, and transforms UNRWA from a humanitarian protection body into a party that deepens the consequences of the crime committed against these victims.
The Commission also warned that terminating the contracts of such a large number of qualified educational staff does not only affect the employees and their families, but also constitutes a direct violation of the right to education of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugee children, and undermines UNRWA’s ability to resume the educational process in the Gaza Strip in the future.
ICSPR emphasized that the financial crisis facing the Agency does not justify collective arbitrary dismissals, does not absolve UNRWA of its legal obligations toward its staff, and does not exempt donor states from their legal and moral responsibilities. It noted that transferring the consequences of international funding failures onto victims of genocide represents a grave breach of the principles of justice, equity, and non-discrimination, and practically serves the occupation’s objectives of weakening and dismantling UNRWA from within.
Accordingly, the International Commission to Support Palestinian People’s Rights (ICSPR) called for the immediate and unconditional revocation of the decision to terminate the contracts of approximately 600 employees from the Gaza Strip, their reinstatement to their positions, and the full guarantee of their financial and legal rights. It demanded that these employees be recognized as a protected category by virtue of being victims of armed conflict and genocide, and that exceptional protection and support measures be provided to them. ICSPR also called for urgent intervention by the UN Secretary-General to protect UNRWA from political targeting and blackmail, to compensate any financial deficit from the UN emergency budget, and to open an independent international investigation under the supervision of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Labour Organization into the legality of the collective dismissal decisions.
Furthermore, ICSPR urged the UN Special Rapporteurs concerned with human rights, labor, education, and refugee rights to take urgent action to document these violations and submit official reports, while calling at the same time for ensuring sustainable and unconditional international funding for UNRWA, and for refraining from making refugees and UNRWA staff bear the cost of international failure.
In conclusion, ICSPR affirmed that saving UNRWA cannot be achieved by creating new victims from within the Agency or by weakening it through harsh administrative policies, but rather by protecting it, correcting its course, empowering it, and ensuring its full commitment to its UN mandate toward Palestinian refugees and its employees, especially in the darkest of circumstances. The Commission announced that it will continue to pursue the legal and human rights track with relevant UN bodies in defense of human dignity, justice, and the rights of genocide victims, and in defense of UNRWA as an indispensable humanitarian and legal necessity.
