Summary
The General Assembly’s resolution ES-10/25, adopted on 11 December 2024, which affirms its full support for the mandate of UNRWA in all its fields of operation, deplores the legislation adopted by the Israeli Knesset on 28 October 2024 and calls on Israel to respect the Agency’s privileges and immunities and facilitate unhindered assistance throughout the Gaza Strip, affirms that the Agency remains the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza and that no organization can replace or substitute its capacity and mandate for the more than 6 million registered Palestine refugees, demands that all parties and specifically Israel enable its unimpeded operation in Gaza and the West Bank including East Jerusalem, underscores reparations for Agency losses, calls for full implementation of the 50 recommendations of the Colonna Independent Review, and appeals for increased voluntary and assessed funding in the Agency’s seventy-fifth year (Resolution ES-10/25: Support for the mandate of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (11 December 2024), PDF p.1-6).
What the file is
United Nations document A/RES/ES-10/25, General Assembly, Distr.: General, 16 December 2024, Tenth emergency special session, Agenda item 5, 6 PDF pages, about 3,020 words in the text copy. Adopted at the 59th plenary meeting on 11 December 2024 without reference to a Main Committee (A/ES-10/L.32). The text copy is clean and matches the original. Footnotes identify the Commissioner-General’s 2023 report A/79/13, the Secretary-General’s letter A/79/558, the Working Group report A/79/329 and the Secretary-General’s operations report A/71/849. No vote count is given in the file. Operative paragraph 1 prints Syrian Arabic Republic where the preamble and paragraph 21 print Syrian Arab Republic; the spelling is kept as printed in the section entry.
Section by section
- Preamble (PDF p.1-3). Resolutions 194 (III), 212 (III), 302 (IV), 78/73 and Council resolutions including 2730 (2024); the Commissioner-General’s 2023 report, the Advisory Commission Chair’s 25 June 2024 letter, the Secretary-General’s 28 October 2024 letter and the Commissioner-General’s 28 October 2024 letter, the latter quoted on an attack unprecedented in United Nations history; the Agency’s vital role across Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic and the Occupied Palestinian Territory; grave concern for refugees in Gaza and the West Bank and the catastrophic Gaza situation; condemnation of killing, injury and detention of staff, attacks on facilities and the East Jerusalem compound, and incitement; unprecedented personnel casualties, inviolability breaches and destruction; movement, access, harassment and visa restrictions; attempts to discredit and terminate operations; the Colonna Review and implementation commitment; termination of nine staff members’ employment following the 7 October 2023 attacks and accountability for neutrality violations; accountability, the Fourth Geneva Convention, Charter Articles 100, 104 and 105, and the personnel-safety instruments.
- Operative paragraphs 1-8 (PDF p.3-4). Paragraph 1 affirms full support for the mandate in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arabic Republic (as printed) and the Occupied Palestinian Territory; paragraph 2 deplores the Knesset legislation of 28 October 2024, whose content is not described, and calls on Israel on obligations, immunities and assistance throughout Gaza; paragraph 3 reaffirms continuation pending a just resolution of the refugee question; paragraph 4 states the indispensable role for more than 6 million registered refugees; paragraphs 5-6 appreciate and commend the Commissioner-General, staff and emergency work; paragraph 7 affirms the Agency as the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza, irreplaceable in capacity and mandate; paragraph 8 affirms its post-ceasefire recovery role.
- Operative paragraphs 9-31 (PDF p.4-6). Warning against dismantling or diminishing the Agency (paragraph 9); inviolability and immunity (paragraph 10); demands on all parties and on Israel to enable the mandate without impediment in Gaza and the West Bank including East Jerusalem and to ensure provision at scale (paragraphs 11-14); reparations and assessments for Agency losses (paragraph 15); protection of personnel and premises (paragraph 16); full implementation of the action plan for the 50 Colonna recommendations with Member State support (paragraph 17); capacity, emergency endorsement, donor welcome, the 22 May 2024 Statement of Shared Commitments initiated by Jordan, Kuwait and Slovenia, host Governments and the Advisory Commission (paragraphs 18-23); financing: Working Group report, financial and operational crises, the Secretary-General’s operations report and assessed-contribution proposal, resolution 78/252 paragraph 61, a 2026 funding proposal under resolution 3331 B (XXIX), and an appeal for voluntary and multi-year contributions (paragraphs 24-30); the Agency’s 75 years and irreplaceability until a just solution (paragraph 31).
Key passages
- “Emphasizes in particular that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East remains the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza, and affirms that no organization can replace or substitute the Agency’s capacity and mandate to serve Palestine refugees and civilians in urgent need of life-saving humanitarian assistance” (operative paragraph 7, PDF p.4)
- “the Agency is under such physical, political and operational attack – unprecedented in United Nations history – that implementation of its mandate may become impossible without decisive intervention by the General Assembly” (Commissioner-General’s letter of 28 October 2024, as quoted in the preamble, PDF p.2)
Evidence the work relies on
A General Assembly resolution, not an evidentiary work. Its stated bases are the mandate resolutions from 194 (III) and 302 (IV) onward, the Commissioner-General’s report for 2023, the Advisory Commission and October 2024 letters it considers, the Colonna Independent Review and its 50 recommendations, the Working Group on Financing report and the Secretary-General’s operations report. Its figures are the more than 6 million registered refugees, the nine terminated staff members, the 50 recommendations and the Agency’s 75 years, each as stated in the text; no staff casualty count is given.
Analysis
The defence of the Agency is built on irreplaceability rather than on rebutting the allegations the preamble records. The nine terminations and the Colonna process are taken note of and turned into an implementation demand with funding attached, while the operative weight falls on continuity: deploring the 28 October 2024 Knesset legislation without describing it, demanding unimpeded operation field by field, claiming a post-ceasefire recovery role, and closing the financing paragraphs with assessed-budget routes alongside the voluntary appeal. Paragraph 31’s 75 years dates the Agency from resolution 302 (IV) of 1949, the mandate this resolution’s preamble recalls.
People, organizations, places and events
UN General Assembly Resolution ES-10/25, UNRWA, Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem, UN General Assembly Resolution 194, UN General Assembly Resolution 302
Concepts
How it relates to other sources
- Resolution 302 (IV): Assistance to Palestine refugees created the Agency whose mandate this resolution defends at 75 years; Resolution 2535 (XXIV) B: United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (10 December 1969) is the earlier mandate-affirming Assembly text in the wiki.
- Resolution ES-10/26: Demand for ceasefire in Gaza (11 December 2024), adopted the same day at the same plenary meeting, repeats the backbone formulation and the Colonna commitment in its paragraph 6.
- Resolution ES-10/21: Protection of civilians and upholding legal and humanitarian obligations (27 October 2023) had called for humanitarian access for the Agency in Gaza in October 2023, before the October 2024 legislation and letters this resolution answers.
Open questions
- The content of the Knesset legislation of 28 October 2024 deplored in paragraph 2 is not described in the file.
- No casualty count for Agency personnel is given, though the preamble calls the number unprecedentedly high.
- Spelling as printed: operative paragraph 1 prints Syrian Arabic Republic; the preamble and paragraph 21 print Syrian Arab Republic. Both forms are recorded as printed.
- Whether the reparations assessments in paragraph 15 or the 2026 funding proposal in paragraph 29 were completed is not recorded in this file.
Coverage
PDF p.1-6 of 6, read in full.