GEOFF BENNETT: Today the U.N. Palestinian relief agency UNRWA said it remains operational, providing humanitarian aid in Gaza, as well as the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

That's despite a ban that went into effect yesterday.

An Israeli law passed in October forbids UNRWA from operating on Israeli land and forbids contact with Israeli authorities.

Nick Schifrin has more.

NICK SCHIFRIN: UNRWA was established after the creation of the state of Israel as the primary U.N. agency to serve the Palestinian population.

In the decades since, it has come to provide some six million Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied territories not only humanitarian assistance, but education and health care.

Israel has argued that UNRWA staff helped commit the Hamas terror attacks on October the 7th, 2023.

The U.N. has said nine UNRWA staff may have been involved and were fired.

To understand the status of UNRWA and its future, we get two views, William Deere, director of UNRWA's Washington, D.C., office, and Assaf Orion, a retired brigadier general with the Israeli Defense Forces, now a fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Thanks very much to both of you.

Welcome to the "News Hour."

Bill Deere, let me start with you.

What is going on with UNRWA?

As we said earlier, there is an official ban that has gone in effect, but you're still operating.

So what's its status?

WILLIAM DEERE, Washington Operations Director, UNRWA: The first day of the ban, all UNRWA facilities in East Jerusalem and the West Bank remained open, save our field headquarters in Jerusalem.

In fact, we had 400 medical consultations in East Jerusalem alone.

is going to reopen again on Sunday.

In Gaza, we are -- our international staff remain, and we continue to stay and deliver.

We are a major part of the humanitarian assistance effort, particularly since the cease-fire.

NICK SCHIFRIN: So, Assaf Orion, what should we make of that, in your opinion, that there is an official ban on this organization, yet it continues to operate?

BRIG GEN. ASSAF ORION (RET.

), The Washington Institute: I think it is important to understand the Israeli view of UNRWA.

And to put it shortly, it's a poisoned apple.

The apple part is the services that we heard, education, food and health, which are a necessity and everybody recognizes the need to do so.

The poisoned part is connected to negative aspects of UNRWA, the involvement and actually the repurposing and overtake of Hamas of parts of UNRWA operations in Gaza, so involvement in terror, participation in the October 7 massacre, in hostage-taking.

We have a hostage who said I was held inside an UNRWA site.

NICK SCHIFRIN: So, Bill Deere, take those arguments on.

Israel says that UNRWA has been infiltrated by Hamas, and then we have seen things like tunnels that Hamas has used underneath UNRWA schools.

WILLIAM DEERE: The U.N. nor UNRWA want Hamas members as part of the organization.

When Israel in January of last year brought us the initial names, the first thing that our commissioner general said was, this is a betrayal of the United Nations.

This is a betrayal of the work that we do for Palestinian refugees.

As a result, we move swiftly and decisively, both us and the secretary-general.

The secretary-general ordered his equivalent of an inspector general to look at this.

The secretary-general also commissioned an independent outside review of UNRWA's neutrality operations.

The record is clear.

When we find, for example, a tunnel under one of our facilities -- and, let's be honest, these tunnels are everywhere -- what we do is, we notify the Israeli government of what we found.

We notify the United States and all the other major donors.

We demarche the Palestinian -- or the de facto authority.

And then, frankly, at some personal risk, we inject cement into those tunnels and such.

NICK SCHIFRIN: So, Assaf Orion, have the steps that UNRWA have taken been sufficient?

And, again, does the fact that they are still operating, the Israeli government appears to be allowing them to operate, mean that the Israeli government in some ways needs UNRWA?

BRIG GEN. ASSAF ORION (RET.

): I think we need to address two issues, the tactical issues that have been mentioned here, of involvement or the use of U.N. sites for terror and military purposes.

The second pertains to the strategic aspects, when this agency, unlike the High Commissioner for Refugees, its sister agency in the U.N., is not about finding long-term solutions for the Palestinian refugees.

Its inheritance or hereditary status given to Palestinians just by the fact that their ancestors were among the refugees in '48 and '67.

No other refugee population is still around.

There are some positive services which were mentioned, but it comes with a problematic load of strategic issues which actually impede the peace process or peacemaking.

And, instead, it is perpetuating the right of return as an issue and inciting through its education system.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Bill Deere, is there an alternative to UNRWA that exists?

WILLIAM DEERE: No.

UNRWA performs a unique function in the U.N. system.

We are a direct service provider.

We run, as Assaf noted, a health care network.

We run an education system.

We provide relief and social services.

Nick, every UNRWA commissioner general wants to be the last UNRWA commissioner general.

Assaf is right.

This was established as a temporary agency until there was a permanent solution.

The member states of the U.N. across 75 years have failed to come to that permanent solution.

In fact, UNRWA is by design built to be turned over to Palestinian institutions.

We -- it's why we pay, for example, local comparator wages.

We don't want to be there forever.

And, in fact,we see our role in Gaza as hopefully being a bridge to whatever emerges as the governance there.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Assaf Orion, I mean, all U.N. officials say you cannot replace UNRWA.

BRIG GEN. ASSAF ORION (RET.

): Sure you can.

Of course you can.

These services can be provided in the West Bank by the PA, in Jordan by the Jordanian government, in Lebanon by the Lebanese government, in Gaza, where, when there will be an alternative government, it will be this government.

It can be alternative U.N. agencies like the food programs, health programs, or refugee programs, the same thing.

And the main thing that the -- that UNRWA should do to make it possible for one day to solve the problem is to stop perpetuating the problem by printing more and more refugee certificates for the sons, granddaughters, grandchildren of the original ones.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Assaf Orion, Bill Deere, thank you very much to you both.

BRIG GEN. ASSAF ORION (RET.

): Thank you.

WILLIAM DEERE: Thank you.