Jerusalem, Jan 20: Israeli forces on Tuesday targeted at least two United Nations facilities, pushing forward with its crackdown against the UN agency for Palestinian refugees tasked with delivering humanitarian services to millions of people across the region.
Crews began bulldozing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s (UNRWA) offices in Sheikh Jarrah and fired tear gas at a vocational school in Qalandia, marking Israel’s latest and most dramatic step against UNRWA.
Roland Friedrich, the agency’s West Bank director, said UNRWA had received word that demolition crews and police arrived at their east Jerusalem headquarters early on Tuesday. Staff have not operated out of the facility for almost a year because of safety reasons, but Israeli forces confiscated devices and forced out the private security guards hired to protect the facility.
“What we saw today is the culmination of two years of incitement and measures against UNRWA in east Jerusalem,” Friedrich said, calling it a violation of international law guaranteeing such facilities protection.
He said forces also began firing tear gas at the vocational school for young Palestinians on the outskirts of Jerusalem on Tuesday afternoon. More than 300 young refugees receive job training in technology and welding there.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the demolition enforced a new law banning UNRWA, noting that Israel owns the site and rejecting UNRWA’s claims that the move violated international law.
Israel has long claimed the agency has an anti-Israel bias, often with little evidence. It says UNRWA employs and maintains ties with militant groups including Hamas. The UN has ardently denied such claims and UNRWA has said it acts quickly to purge any suspected militants among its staff.
UNRWA’s mandate is to provide aid and services to some 2.5 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as 3 million more refugees in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. The group has for years maintained infrastructure in refugee camps and also run schools and provide health care.
But its operations were curtailed last year when Israel’s Knesset passed legislation severing ties and banning it from functioning in what it defines as Israel — including east Jerusalem.
The agency said the demolitions could imperil operations at its vocational centre in Qalandia and heath facility in Shua’fat, where it continues to provide education and health services.
An Israeli flag was seen hoisted above the facility in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, where some Israeli politicians arrived on the scene to celebrate the organisation’s fate. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called it “a historic day.”
The demolition marked the culmination of years of criticism from Israel and its leaders, who contend that UNRWA harbours pro-Palestinian leanings and maintains ties or employees members of militant groups like Hamas.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war more than two years ago, it has ramped up such attacks, accusing UNRWA of being infiltrated by Hamas and saying the militants used its facilities and seized aid. It has provided little evidence for the claims, which the UN has denied. The International Court of Justice said in October that Israel must allow the agency to provide humanitarian assistance in Gaza.
Since Israel passed the law banning the agency last year, its facilities — schools and health centres — and its headquarters have repeatedly been closed, raided or left unprotected.
Israel has contended the agency perpetuates Palestinians’ refugee status, while UNRWA supporters have said Israel’s attacks on the agency are aimed at sidelining the issue — one of the most contentious dividing Israelis and Palestinians.
“This comes in the wake of other steps taken by Israeli authorities to erase the Palestine Refugee identity,” Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s commissioner-general, said in a statement on X. “This must be a wake-up call. What happens today to UNRWA will happen tomorrow to any other international organisation or diplomatic mission, whether in the Occupied Palestinian Territory or anywhere around the world.”
Under President Donald Trump, the United States cut funding for the agency in 2018. President Joe Biden restored it in 2021 and later paused funding in 2024.
Israel’s ban on UNRWA dovetailed with broader efforts to deregister aid groups operating in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Israel has passed laws requiring nongovernmental organisations not hire staff involved in activities that “delegitimise Israel” or support boycotts, demanding they register lists of names as a condition of being allowed to work.
Israel told dozens of groups — including Doctors Without Borders and CARE — that their licenses would expire at the end of 2025. The organisations say the rules are arbitrary and warned that the new ban would harm a civilian population desperately in need of humanitarian aid. (AP)
