GENEVA, Switzerland — A training center for hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank could be closed within days by Israeli authorities, jeopardizing the education of students, the UN Palestinian refugee agency said on Friday.
The Qalandiya Training Center, which teaches 350 young male students from across the West Bank skills such as plumbing and vehicle maintenance, could be shut, as the land it sits on is at risk of expropriation by Israeli authorities, UNRWA said.
“If the center were to be forcibly closed — and we do fear that this could happen within days — there is no educational alternative for these students. So you’re depriving a large cohort of Palestine refugees of economic opportunities,” Jonathan Fowler, UNRWA’s spokesperson, told reporters in Geneva, speaking via video link from Amman, Jordan.
“The right to education would be under attack there… The international community needs to wake up,” he added.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
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The Knesset has passed legislation banning the group from Israeli territory, barring Israeli officials from having contact with it and shutting it off from Israeli electricity and water. Despite the ban, UNRWA operations, including schools, healthcare and other social services, are still trying to operate in East Jerusalem.
Israel demolishes a structure inside the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in East Jerusalem on January 20, 2026 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Israel demolished structures inside the agency’s East Jerusalem compound on Tuesday, a site it seized last year.
The agency’s chief, Philippe Lazzarini, said the demolition was the latest in a series of Israeli actions against UNRWA, including shuttering a medical clinic for 30 days earlier this month and its plan to cut power and water to UNRWA facilities in the coming weeks.
UNRWA has functioned for decades as the main international agency providing social services to millions of Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank, Jordan and neighboring countries.
Israel has long sought to shutter the agency altogether, saying it perpetuates the conflict by collaborating with Hamas and continuing to confer refugee status on Palestinians rather than resettling them, unlike standard practice with the rest of the world’s refugees.
It ramped up its campaign against the agency after it brought evidence showing that employees of the agency had participated in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught.
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.
A number of freed hostages who were kidnapped in the October 7 attack have also testified after returning to Israel that they were held in captivity in UNRWA schools and facilities.
Some supporters of UNRWA have noted the key role the agency fills in providing relief to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and keeping them from deeper poverty that could fuel violence and terrorism, saying no other body or group is equipped to handle that responsibility.
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