Israel is actively encouraging UN agencies and other aid groups to take over the work of the UN Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, Israel’s ambassador has said after the agency was banned from operating on Israeli territory in January.

“We, the State of Israel, are working to find a substitute to the act, to the work of UNRWA inside Gaza,” Daniel Meron, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, told reporters.

He declined to give specifics but said Israel was “encouraging the UN agencies and NGOs to take over each one in its own field that they specialise in”.