Just one day after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to halt its killing of civilians in Gaza — ruling that the country may be violating the Genocide Convention — Western countries, led by the United States, halted funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, better known as UNRWA.

It was a stunningly punitive move, a brazen act of collective punishment amid widespread starvation in Gaza, where more than two million people depend on UNRWA for basic survival. UNRWA runs shelters for over one million people, providing food and primary health care to displaced Palestinians. About three thousand staffers, most of them Palestinian refugees, continue to operate in Gaza under relentless Israeli bombardment. (At least 156 UNRWA workers have been killed by Israel in the past three months, and Israel has also bombed countless UNRWA shelters and schools, slaying thousands of displaced civilians.)

The suspension of aid has stunned UN officials. “As the war continues, needs are deepening and famine looms,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said. “This stains all of us.” UN chief António Guterres appealed to the donor countries not to punish the “two million civilians in Gaza who depend on critical assistance from UNRWA,” while Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, warned that defunding UNRWA “overtly defies” the ICJ order to allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza.