responsibility to uphold the right of return. To be clear, the only just and legal cause for the dismantlement of UNRWA is the exercise of the right of return for Palestinian refugees. While acknowledging this point,10 the Assessment treats humanitarian provision (UNRWA’s mandate) as administratively and politically separable from the implementation of a just and durable solution—particularly the right of return—and implicitly attempts to normalize a framework of indefinite assistance absent legal and political accountability for refugee rights. 3. Politicized Governance and Scenarios of Collapse While presented as distinct alternatives to safeguard UNRWA’s mandate, the Strategic Assessment’s four scenarios in fact converge around two trajectories: disorganized collapse through inaction and undermining of regional stability; and organized collapse via institutionalizing the transfer of UNRWA’s responsibilities away from its mandate. These scenarios, through technical-sounding governance reforms, service transfers, and donor-led restructurings that obscure violations of international law, enshrine into UN policy what have historically been ad hoc coping mechanisms, and reframe UNRWA as a logistical service provider. Given that the United Nations Conciliation Commission on Palestine (UNCCP)11 is no longer operational and that Article 1D of the 1951 Refugee Convention has been wrongly interpreted to exclude Palestinian refugees from the United Nations High Commissioner for 10 United Nations. Report to the Secretary-General: UNRWA Strategic Assessment, 2025, 6. 11 “United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine,” The Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question, Institute for Palestine Studies, accessed August 1, 2025, https://www.palquest. org/en/highlight/24260/united-nations-conciliation-commission-palestine. 4