Israel raids UNRWA job center, shuts schools in East Jerusalem after agency banned
UN refugee body says police, Jerusalem officials storm Qalandiya vocational training facility with tear gas and sound grenades; two schools said to defy order to shutter
Israeli forces raided a vocational center and shuttered three East Jerusalem schools, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Tuesday.
The actions, which the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said affected some 600 students, were the latest move by Israeli authorities to banish the body from operating in its territory.
According to UNRWA, police and Jerusalem municipality staff entered the Kalandia Training Centre by force Tuesday morning, firing tear gas and sound grenades and ordering its evacuation. It said 350 students and 30 staff were present during the raid on the job-training facility, which is located just outside the Qalandiya refugee camp bordering East Jerusalem.
Police and city officials also ordered the closure of three other schools in East Jerusalem attended by around 250 children, UNRWA said. Two of the schools, which were not named by UNRWA, reportedly continued operating despite the order.
A spokesperson for the Israel Police said officers were carrying out an order from Jerusalem City Hall. A spokesperson for the municipality could not be reached.
In a statement, UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini called the moves “a violation of the basic right to education as well as of United Nations privileges and immunities.”
“Children’s access to education must be preserved and United Nations facilities must be protected and respected at all times wherever they are,” he said.
Roland Friedrich, UNRWA director for the West Bank and East Jerusalem, said the raids were “unacceptable” and a “denial of the right to education for children and trainees.”
Israel last month severed all ties between its officials and UNRWA and barred the agency from operating in Israeli territory.
The ban was passed by the Knesset in November with a wide majority, with the support of opposition parties, amid a series of revelations about employees of the agency who were actively involved in terror groups in the Gaza Strip, participation of some of its staff in the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion and slaughter, and repeated use of UNRWA infrastructure for terror activities. Israel has also provided evidence that the agency’s schools incited hatred of Israel and glorification of attacks against Israelis.
UNRWA has for decades run schools and clinics in East Jerusalem for tens of thousands of registered refugees there.
The agency was established in 1949 following Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. It provides aid, health and education to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and neighboring Arab countries — Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
Some 5.9 million people are registered as Palestinian refugees by UNRWA because they are descended from Arabs displaced in the 1948 war.
Israel has long argued that UNRWA perpetuates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by using this definition of refugee, the only case in which the status is passed down generationally.
The hostility between Israel and the UN body intensified in the wake of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages.
Israel has provided evidence that a dozen UNRWA employees were involved in the deadly 2023 attack and insists that other agencies can pick up the slack to provide essential services, aid and reconstruction — something the UN and many donor governments dispute.
A series of investigations, including one led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found some “neutrality-related issues” at UNRWA, but claimed Israel had not provided evidence for its headline allegation.
Charlie Summers contributed to this report.
