THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The United States told the International Court of Justice Wednesday that Israel must provide aid to Gaza, but the country does not have to work with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.
The top court of the United Nations is holding a week of hearings on what Israel must do to provide desperately needed humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, following a request for an advisory opinion from the U.N. General Assembly last year.
The U.S. said Israel had legitimate concerns about the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, also known as UNRWA, the largest provider of aid in the beleaguered Gaza Strip.
''In sum, there is no legal requirement that an occupying power permit a specific third state or international organization to conduct activity in occupied territory that would compromise its security interests,'' Josh Simmons, a legal advisor from the State Department, told The Hague-based court.
Simmons suggested other organizations could fulfill UNRWA's mission.
In January, Israel banned the agency from operating on its territory. Israel alleges that 19 out of UNRWA's approximately 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in Hamas' attack in southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people and set off the war in Gaza.
UNRWA said it fired nine staffers after an internal U.N. investigation concluded that they could have been involved, although the evidence was not authenticated or corroborated. Israel later alleged that about 100 other Palestinians in Gaza were Hamas members, but never provided any evidence to the United Nations.
On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar hit back at the case. ''I accuse UNRWA, I accuse the U.N., I accuse the secretary-general and I accuse all those that weaponized international law and its institutions in order to deprive the most attacked country in the world, Israel, of its most basic right to defend itself,'' he told a news conference in Jerusalem.
