Authorities raid UNRWA offices in East Jerusalem, raise Israeli flag over compound

Tax officials and police raided the offices of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, in East Jerusalem Monday morning, according to the organization’s chief, amid an ongoing Israeli crackdown on the organization’s activities.

Officers pulled down the UN flag atop the compound and replaced it with an Israeli flag, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said, accusing Israel of “blatant disregard” for its obligation as a UN member state to respect the inviolability of UN premises.

With trucks and forklifts, the authorities took “furniture, IT equipment and other property,” Lazzarini said.

The raid took place after the Knesset passed a pair of laws in late October 2024 banning UNRWA from operating within Israeli territory. Despite the ban, UNRWA operations, including schools, healthcare and other social services, are still hobbling along in East Jerusalem.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the raid.

“This compound remains United Nations premises and is inviolable and immune from any other form of interference,” Guterres said in a statement. “I urge Israel to immediately take all necessary steps to restore, preserve and uphold the inviolability of UNRWA premises and to refrain from taking any further action with regard to UNRWA premises.”

Israeli police told AFP in a statement that the seizures were “carried out by the Jerusalem municipality as part of a debt-collection procedure.”

“Police are present to secure the municipality’s activity,” the statement said.

Jerusalem police spokesman Dean Elsdunne told AFP that the debt collection was related to a municipal occupancy tax known as arnona.

The Jerusalem municipality said tax collectors had entered the UNRWA compound over unpaid property taxes of NIS 11 million ($3.4 million) after multiple warnings were issued and all necessary procedures were followed.

“This is a substantial debt that required collection after repeated requests, warnings and numerous opportunities given to settle it, which were not answered,” it told Reuters.

UNRWA spokesperson Jonathan Fowler said the East Jerusalem compound remained UN premises despite the Israeli ban on its operations and that the agency had no debts to the municipality.

Roland Friedrich, UNRWA director for the West Bank and East Jerusalem, said the agency was exempt from being assessed levies.

“There is no debt because the United Nations — and UNRWA is part of the United Nations and is a UN agency — is not required to pay any kind of taxes of that kind under international law and under the law that Israel itself has adopted,” he said.

Under the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN, later ratified by Israel, the UN and its assets must not be taxed by host countries.

The UN had contacted Israeli authorities several times to remind them of their obligations under the UN convention, Fowler said.

The Prime Minister’s Office and Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the raid.

“Whatever action taken domestically, the compound retains its status as a UN premises, immune from any form of interference,” said Lazzarini, who has been declared persona non grata by Israel.

The compound has been empty of UNRWA staff since January, when the law banning its operations took effect.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency provides education, health care and aid to millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Israel has long sought to shutter UNRWA, saying it perpetuates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by continuing to confer refugee status on descendants of Arabs who left their homes in what is now Israel during the War of Independence from 1947 to 1949.

It ramped up its campaign against the agency after evidence showed that employees of the agency had participated in the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, and had incited against it.

Israel has also alleged that more than 10 percent of UNRWA’s staff in Gaza have ties to terrorist factions, and that educational facilities under the organization’s auspices consistently incite hatred of Israel and glorify terror.

In February 2024, the IDF revealed the existence of a subterranean Hamas data center directly beneath UNRWA’s Gaza Strip headquarters. The IDF has also repeatedly targeted Hamas command centers and gunmen hiding out in UNRWA schools.

A number of freed hostages have also testified after returning to Israel that they were held in captivity in UNRWA schools and facilities.

However, some have noted the key role the agency fills in providing relief to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, keeping them from deeper poverty that could fuel violence and terrorism, saying no other body or group is equipped to handle that responsibility.

Reuters contributed to this report.