What is the United Nations relief and works agency for Palestine refugees?
The Israeli Knesset on Monday passed two laws banning the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) from operating inside Israel and occupied Palestine, despite a torrent of international pressure urging Israel not to pass the ban.
The vote was a culmination of more than one year of sustained military, financial and diplomatic attacks on Unrwa since Israel's war on Gaza began after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023.
Unrwa was established by the UN as a subsidiary organisation on 8 December 1949, after the Arab-Israeli war that erupted following the creation of the state of Israel the previous year, in what is known as the Nakba, or "catastrophe" by Palestinians.
Besides the occupied Palestinian territories, Unrwa is active in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Before Israel's war on Gaza, the agency had an estimated 30,000 employees, and about one-third of them were based in the besieged enclave. The vast majority were Palestinians working in schools, health services or construction and infrastructure work.