The Israeli Foreign Ministry marked World Refugee Day on Saturday by criticizing the U.N. Relief and Works Agency over its discriminatory treatment of Palestinian refugees since its establishment in 1949.
“Refugee agencies are supposed to reduce the number of refugees,” the ministry tweeted, adding that as for UNRWA, it ensures that the number of Palestinian refugees only rises.
Today is World Refugee Day.
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) June 20, 2026
A day to remember that refugee agencies are supposed to reduce the number of refugees.
Unless you're @UNRWA.
Then somehow the number only goes up. pic.twitter.com/zVyykl8iEE
As a result of Israel’s defense of itself during its reestablishment, roughly 700,000 Arabs in Britain’s Palestine Mandate were displaced. A large portion of them heeded to calls to leave from the invading Arab armies, promising that they could return home after the nascent Jewish state was destroyed.
Unlike other United Nations refugee agencies, UNRWA automatically grants refugee status to all descendants of Palestinian refugees, and does not actively search for resettlement solutions.
As a result, today more than 5.9 million Palestinians are registered with UNRWA as refugees.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry in a separate tweet highlighted a contrary policy, the Jewish state’s absorption of millions of Jewish refugees and immigrants in its founding years.
These included Holocaust survivors, Jews expelled from Arab countries, Ethiopian Jews and Soviet Jews.
“They were not kept as refugees: They became citizens. They became Israelis,” the ministry stressed.
In its founding years Israel absorbed millions of refugees and immigrants from around the world.
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) June 20, 2026
Holocaust survivors. Jews forced out of Arab countries. Jews from Ethiopia. Jews from the Soviet Union.
They were not kept as refugees:
They became citizens. They became Israelis.… pic.twitter.com/PuWf6cnfa8
