I do agree with that. The Israelis have long had a problem with UNRWA. By passing the legislation they did yesterday and withdrawing the privileges and immunities of the agency to operate in the territory that they occupy, the OPT, it deprives the agency from being able to discharge its obligations.
For instance, one of the provisions of the legislation is that no Israeli can communicate, discuss anything or have contact with any agency official. You can imagine that the hundreds of checkpoints erected, maintained and manned by the Israeli military across the occupied Palestinian territory need to be traversed by UNRWA officials in UN-marked and plated vehicles on a daily basis, or on an hourly basis. It is now illegal for these soldiers to speak to or entertain UNRWA's very presence in that territory.
What this means is that, because UNRWA is the largest provider of humanitarian aid and assistance to Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory, if you remove—as the Israelis are attempting to do—UNRWA's presence in the territory, you make it a whole lot harder for Palestinians to live.
The occupying power has an obligation under international law to provide humanitarian aid, assistance and relief supplies to the protected populations—see article 59 of the fourth Geneva convention—and it has an obligation to do that also under article 60. If UNRWA is not there to do it for the occupying power, that burden falls to the Israelis, and they will not do it. They have made it very clear.
This is, in effect, an attempt to hasten the ethnic cleansing of occupied Palestine, in my respectful view. I say this as a former legal counsel to UNRWA of some 12 years. I've served with UNRWA. I spoke regularly with Israeli officials, including in the IDF. I understand the operations of the organization, and I hold myself out to answer any question in relation to UNRWA.