Israel launches operation to take over East Jerusalem UNRWA facility it says it controls

PM: Israel to use ‘every means at its disposal’ to stop activity of UN agency ‘involved in terrorism’; Jerusalem says land owned by Jewish Agency since 1937, UNRWA says Jordan handed it over in 1952

Israeli officials announced on Tuesday the start of operations to dismantle a vocational training center run by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, in the East Jerusalem area of Kafr Aqab, near the Qalandiya refugee camp, on land Jerusalem says is controlled by the state.

Israel “will not allow an organization whose employees were involved in terrorism and in the October 7 massacre to operate on its territory, and will take action against it using every means at its disposal,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Hebrew-language statement.

The prime minister said he had ordered the evacuation of UNWRA from the compound in line with a law passed in 2024 banning the UN agency from operating in Israeli territory.

The statement from Netanyahu came hours after National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir announced the start of the police operation.

“Large forces of Israel Police are working together with the relevant authorities to implement the law and get UNRWA out of the area,” Ben Gvir said in a statement. “An organization whose workers were involved in terrorism, and which served as a front for Hamas time after time, has no right to exist for even one more second, and has no place in Jerusalem and the State of Israel.”

Footage from Palestinian media showed Ben Gvir on the scene with Israeli forces at the UNRWA facility. According to the Haaretz newspaper, Ben Gvir was accompanied by a camera crew from the pro-government Channel 14 TV station.

اقتحام وزير الأمن القومي الإسرائيلي، إيتمار بن غفير، لمعهد قلنديا التابع لوكالة "أونروا" في مخيم #قلنديا شمال القدس المحتلة.

للتفاصيل: https://t.co/EA1eijviRd pic.twitter.com/ctCCOn8xyj

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— موقع عرب 48 (@arab48website) August 25, 2026

The Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem Governorate said Israeli forces ordered UNRWA employees to exit the facility and not return. It also said that Israeli forces had raised the Israeli flag in the courtyard of the training center.

Israel has long accused UNRWA of fomenting anti-Israel sentiment in its schools, and in the aftermath of the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, also accused it of collaborating with Hamas in Gaza, providing evidence of agency employees who were also terror operatives. The UN agency denies the charges. In late 2024, Israel passed legislation banning UNRWA from Israeli territory, including East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after the Six Day War of June 1967.

A statement from the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said the operation was part of “renovation work” carried out by the Jerusalem Municipality on a “new educational and community complex in Jerusalem’s Kafr Aqab neighborhood, for the benefit of thousands of its Arab residents.”

The ministry said that the municipality is spending more than NIS 40 million ($13 million) on the project, including a new high school set to open next month. The statement asserted that the complex in question is on a plot owned by the Jewish National Fund since 1937, is being built “following close dialogue with neighborhood residents,” and will include schools, a mosque, sports and healthcare facilities.

Israeli forces detain a Palestinian man during a raid on the UNRWA Vocational Training Center, between the Kafr Aqab neighborhood and the Qalandiya refugee camp, in east Jerusalem, August 25, 2026. (Zain JAAFAR/AFP)

UNRWA says the land was given to it by the Jordanian government in 1952 — when Jordan controlled East Jerusalem — to establish the vocational training center that has operated there ever since. The center trains about 340 students a year and was open for registration for the coming school year, starting on September 1, according to UNRWA.

An AFP journalist at the scene said Israeli forces closed the main road near the entrance to the Qalandiya Training Center, while forces inside the institute were moving from one building to another.

The journalist reported seeing a convoy of three civilian vehicles leaving the institute, escorted by the military.

The UN body said earlier this month that it was aware of the municipal plan, and that carrying it out would violate protections to UN facilities under international law.

Israeli forces stand guard during a raid on the UNRWA Vocational Training Center, located between the Kafr Aqab neighborhood and the Qalandiya refugee camp, in East Jerusalem, August 25, 2026. (Zain JAAFAR/AFP)

“Should the Israeli authorities proceed with the implementation of the plan, such action would raise serious concerns regarding Israel’s obligations under international law, including its obligations as a Member State of the United Nations,” UNRWA said.

However, the Foreign Ministry and the Jerusalem Municipality maintain that UNRWA has no ownership or control over the plot of land in question.

“Despite holding no property rights to the plot, UNRWA has walled off the land for decades, denying local residents much-needed space for schools and community services,” the ministry statement said. “UNRWA’s activities in Israel were prohibited by law following evidence of its employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks and its inseparable links to Hamas.”

This picture shows a view of the UNRWA Vocational Training Centre, located between the Kafr Aqab neighborhood and the Qalandia refugee camp, south of the West Bank city of Ramallah, on August 25, 2026. (Zain JAAFAR/AFP)

Separately on Tuesday, the Israel Police announced that a “conference identified with the Palestinian Authority” in Jerusalem’s Old City was thwarted a day earlier.

According to the Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem Governorate, the event in question was a graduation ceremony for a Palestinian organization that teaches graduate students from Al-Quds University. Four guests, including the director of the Center for Jerusalem Studies and the head of the Palestinian Jerusalem Tourism Cluster, were detained for interrogation, the governorate said.

Police said that “intelligence activity by the Jerusalem District’s central unit” had uncovered the plans to hold the event “inside the Old City, in violation of the Implementation Law.”

The 1994 Law on Implementation of the Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which enshrined agreements reached as part of the Oslo Accords, forbade the Palestinian Authority from holding gatherings on Israeli territory without permission from Israel, and authorized the public security minister to order the closure of unapproved PA gatherings in Israel.

Ben Gvir signed an order to shut down the Palestinian gathering after he and top police officers reviewed the plans to hold the event, police said in a statement.

Officers arrived at the site of the gathering, where “they noticed preparations and a number of people, and informed them of the order prohibiting the event,” the statement said. It did not mention any arrests.

Chairs are lined up ahead of a graduation ceremony at the Khan Tankaz compound in the Cotton Merchants’ Market in the Old City of Jerusalem on August 24, 2026. (Israel Police)

The ceremony was set to take place in Khan Tankaz, the compound that houses the Center for Jerusalem Studies in the Muslim Quarter’s Cotton Merchants’ Market.

The Center for Jerusalem Studies, which teaches an interdisciplinary graduate program on the city, is affiliated with Al-Quds University, a nonprofit independent institution overseen by the nearby Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The university, which is the only Arab university in Jerusalem, is accredited by the Palestinian Authority but not by Israel. It was established in 1995 as a merger of other Palestinian institutions. According to its website, the university has about 12,000 full-time students and over 700 faculty.