Gaza: Why distrust of UN has deepened at a moment of greatest need

To the Israelis, the United Nations has betrayed them.

To the Palestinians, the United Nations is abandoning them.

Israeli officials allege that 12 members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the primary U.N. body supporting Palestinian refugees, aided Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and that 10% of UNRWA’s staff in Gaza has ties to Hamas.

Palestinians decry the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague, the U.N.’s top court, for refusing to call for a cease-fire in Gaza as it considers charges of “genocide” brought by South Africa against Israel. And they accuse the U.N. of being unable to protect civilians in Gaza from bombardment, even in its own facilities.

The two perspectives are vastly different, and yet they both point to a key variable in this Mideast war: a lack of trust in outside institutions meant to impartially uphold international law and maintain peace and security.

Israeli and Palestinian distrust of the U.N. and its constituent bodies dates back decades.

Israel has long seen U.N. forums, particularly the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and General Assembly, as displaying an anti-Israel bias. Palestinians see the nonimplementation of numerous resolutions supporting their rights and self-determination as proof of a double standard in the enforcement of international law.

And many say the U.N.’s struggles in this Israel-Hamas war – to protect lives and show empathy to both sides – have only served to further undermine Israeli and Palestinian faith in global institutions, reinforcing suspicions that the international system is compromised by bias and racism.

This distrust is having far-reaching impacts on the U.N. agencies’ ability to provide services, distribute aid, and act as a neutral third party in a war that has become the most violent and polarizing chapter of the decades-old conflict.

“In the last four months, the U.N. has found itself in this impossible middle-ground position where it will alienate key member states no matter what it says,” says Melissa Labonte, associate professor of political science at Fordham University and an affiliate at its Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs.

“The U.N. itself was slow to acknowledge, much to its detriment, the magnitude and the resonance of the Hamas attack on Israel, deepening mistrust. At the same time, it was incredibly guarded in how it chose to proceed, which was the beginning of the trust deficit with the Palestinians.”

Empathy lacking?

Many Israelis say following the Oct. 7 attack, international institutions demonstrated a lack of empathy for the Israeli civilians killed, maimed, or abducted by Hamas that day, citing in particular a muted and delayed response by the U.N.

U.N. Women, which works for gender equality and women’s empowerment, and lists ending violence against women as one of its top focus areas, was silent for two months on Hamas’ reported systematic rape and mutilation of Israeli women and girls – despite witness testimonies emerging within days of Oct. 7.

By the time the organization put out a statement condemning Hamas, it had lost credibility that Israeli human rights advocates say will be hard to regain.

“I’m not willing to say I personally have lost all trust, but these organizations have a lot of work to do to earn back our trust in them,” says Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar-Ilan University.

The outrage simmers in Israel. At rallies organized by relatives of Israelis held hostage in Gaza, protesters still chant, “Me too, unless you’re a Jew.”

Protests outside U.N. headquarters in New York and the U.N.’s offices in Jerusalem also criticize the world body for failing to secure the release of the hostages.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ speech to the Security Council Oct. 24 became another point of contention. While condemning Hamas’ “horrifying and unprecedented” violence, he posited that “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” but rather after “56 years of suffocating occupation” by Israel.

Mr. Guterres “tried to justify, in a way, what happened on Oct. 7. Then he tried to apologize, but he didn’t really apologize,” says Danny Danon, former Israeli ambassador to the U.N. and a senior Likud parliamentarian. “He lost the trust of the Israelis. I think that’s something he should try to fix, but I don’t know if he can.”

Safety concerns

Underlying the mistrust are issues of safety and security.

The U.N. flag, a globally recognized symbol of safety in war zones, has failed to stop Israeli bombs, missiles, and tank shells from hitting evacuation centers and schools, killing Palestinian civilians sheltering there.

Since the beginning of the war, among the more than 27,000 Palestinians killed in Israel’s military offensive, more than 136 U.N. aid workers, all Palestinian nationals, have been killed – the highest in any conflict since the U.N.’s founding 78 years ago.

“How can the U.N. protect us when they cannot even protect themselves?” says Umm Samer, a mother in Rafah, which is increasingly under missile fire and facing the prospect of a major Israeli ground operation.

For Israel, last month’s intelligence brief alleging UNRWA-Hamas links was further proof that aid organizations’ complacency has put Israeli national security at risk.

Israel’s regard for UNRWA sustained another blow this past week with the army’s allegation that tunnels under the organization’s Gaza headquarters, shown to reporters, included a major Hamas data-and-command center. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini denied knowledge of such a facility.

One Israeli security official says he believes international organizations are “obviously influenced by Hamas,” noting, “These are international bodies, but the employees are local Gazans.”

Unequal before international law?

Adding to the height of wartime emotions is what both Israelis and Palestinians see as double standards in how international law is being applied, inequities that reinforce perceptions of a lack of empathy.

Israelis see an outsize number of resolutions and statements condemning their army compared with other conflicts in the region, many even before the war began, cementing a feeling of being singled out that officials and citizens ascribe to “antisemitism.”

Palestinians see blatant racism embedded in the global order.

They point to the West’s invoking of international humanitarian law and sanctions on Russia for its war on Ukraine, and what they say is silence on Gaza as Israel pursues similar tactics: targeting health facilities and residential neighborhoods and cutting off water, electricity, and food supplies to civilians.

Repeated U.S. vetoes of U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for a Gaza cease-fire have led many Palestinians to conclude that in the rules-based order that the U.N. claims to uphold, Ukrainian lives are worth saving, not Palestinian.

“It doesn’t matter if you are a Canadian or an American citizen, if you are a Palestinian, your life is worth less. This message has never been clearer than now,” says Ahmed, a Canadian Palestinian in the Tulkarem refugee camp in the West Bank, who withheld his family name for security reasons.

“How can the U.N. and the international community expect us to ever believe a word they say on human rights or international law,” he asks, “when we have been told that our own humanity, our own blood, is worthless?”

“Palestinians have lost trust in international law and institutions,” acknowledges Omar Awadallah, the Palestinian Authority’s assistant foreign minister for multilateral relations. “We feel there is selectivity and exceptionalism; what we saw in Gaza is that Palestinians are excluded from human rights.”

A symbol of this perceived unequal application of international law is South Africa’s case before the ICJ at the Hague alleging Israel’s conduct in Gaza was “genocidal in nature,” violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

Israel rejected the case as a “blood libel,” saying the court “went above and beyond” just by agreeing to hear the case and not rejecting South Africa’s “antisemitic” claim outright.

Palestinians too have denounced the court, but for different reasons. They had pinned their hopes on the ICJ ordering an immediate cease-fire in Gaza to allow for evidence-gathering. In its Jan. 26 interim measure, the court declined to do so, but instructed Israel to take steps to prevent genocide and to report back to the court.

“Although I don’t trust the international community, I held a faint glimmer of hope that the court would make a ruling in favor of a cease-fire in Gaza,” says Mohammad Mihjez, an English professor in Gaza.

Professor Mihjez, and many Palestinians, see the court’s actions as proof that the U.N. and the ICJ are influenced by powers such as the United States, allowing American allies like Israel to conduct wars with impunity.

“Mighty nations dominate the international community. Those with the power have the right to do whatever they want without being punished,” says Professor Mihjez. “We [Palestinians] are abandoned.”

Impact on the ground

The gaps in trust are impacting U.N. organizations’ abilities to provide services on the ground.

Israel’s allegations regarding UNRWA led the U.S. and several other Western states to suspend their funding of the organization. UNRWA says it is set to run out of funds and cease operations by the end of February, threatening the humanitarian lifeline to 2 million Palestinians in Gaza.

Despite maintaining daily coordination with the U.N., the Israeli government has sanctioned officials deemed biased. In December, it revoked the visa of the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Lynn Hastings, saying she had “lost the trust and confidence of Israeli authorities” by repeatedly criticizing Israel’s actions while remaining silent on Hamas. The U.N. responded that Ms. Hastings had “the secretary-general’s full confidence.”

In mid-January, the Israeli government barred Israeli doctors and nurses involved in the care of Oct. 7 victims and released hostages from speaking with an inquiry commission dispatched by the U.N. Human Rights Council to explore potential war crimes committed in the Israel-Hamas war.

Among Gazans, frustrations are boiling up over aid organizations’ inability to bring in adequate food and fuel to keep their families alive.

Desperately hungry and angry crowds have blocked U.N. aid trucks on their way to northern Gaza and taken aid for themselves. Last month, upon discovering U.N. cars were carrying fuel for hospitals and not badly needed food, frustrated Gazans threw rocks.

Such actions are “indicative of distrust,” says Andrea De Domenico, local director of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which is coordinating the Gaza aid response.

“Heavy restrictions imposed on humanitarian organizations amid constant bombardment have prevented us from delivering assistance in a meaningful way and at scale,” he says. “This has, unfortunately but quite understandably, created distrust among people in need, further challenging the efficacy of relief operations.”

Restoring credibility

The U.N. and its institutions have recently taken steps to restore their credibility among Israelis and Palestinians.

Secretary-General Guterres appointed an independent panel of veteran European diplomats on Feb. 5 to investigate UNRWA and “assess whether the agency is doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality and to respond to allegations of serious breaches.”

In late January, a delegation led by Pramila Patten, the secretary-general’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, arrived in Israel, met with witnesses, and toured sites of the Hamas attacks. Her aim was “to give voice to survivors” and “to identify avenues for support, including justice and accountability, and to gather, analyze, and verify information” of potential war crimes – a move welcomed by the Israeli government.

The U.N. has used its voice to warn against an Israeli ground offensive into Rafah, which Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths warned would lead to a “slaughter.” And the ICJ received a petition from South Africa urging it to issue constraints on the planned military operation, which it argued breaches the court’s interim decision.

While the moves are unlikely to soothe outraged and wounded publics, for Israeli and Palestinian diplomats they offer a potential avenue to continue engagement with U.N. bodies – despite reservations.

Mr. Danon, the former Israeli diplomat, says while the war has been a lesson that Israel should rely on itself, there nevertheless remains a need to “convince Israelis that we should be there, we should speak up at the U.N., we cannot ignore the U.N.”

Palestinian diplomats urge their public not to abandon international law.

“A single court case or a U.N. resolution will not solve the Palestinian cause,” notes Mr. Awadallah, the Palestinian assistant foreign minister. “It is slow, but in the end, accountability will lead to justice,” and that justice will serve as “a track to statehood.”

Ghada Abdulfattah contributed to this report from the Gaza Strip.