JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Israeli forces on Tuesday targeted at least two United Nations facilities, pushing forward with a crackdown against the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees tasked with delivering humanitarian services to millions of people across the region.<\/p>\n
Crews began bulldozing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency\u2019s offices in Sheikh Jarrah and fired tear gas at a vocational school in Qalandiya, marking Israel\u2019s latest and most dramatic step against UNRWA.<\/p>\n
Israel has long railed against the agency, accusing it of being infiltrated by the militant group Hamas and saying that some of its employees were involved in the October 2023 attack that triggered Israel\u2019s two-year war in Gaza. UNRWA leaders have said they took swift action against the employees accused of taking part in the attack, and have denied allegations that the agency tolerates or collaborates with Hamas.<\/p>\n
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday condemned Israel\u2019s destruction of the agency\u2019s compound and called for it to be returned to the United Nations\u2019 control.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Secretary-General views as wholly unacceptable the continued escalatory actions against UNRWA, which are inconsistent with Israel\u2019s clear obligations under international law,\u201d said Farhan Haq, the deputy U.N. spokesperson.<\/p>\n
Roland Friedrich, the agency\u2019s West Bank director, said UNRWA received word that demolition crews and police arrived at its East Jerusalem headquarters early Tuesday. Staffers 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 guards hired to protect the facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we saw today is the culmination of two years of incitement and measures against UNRWA in East Jerusalem,\u201d Friedrich said, calling it a violation of international law guaranteeing such facilities protection.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Some children on their way home from the school were overcome by the tear gas and a 15-year-old was hit in the eye with a rubber bullet, according to the Palestinian Authority\u2019s Jerusalem governorate, which monitors Palestinian affairs in the area.<\/p>\n
Israeli leaders celebrate demolition<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s Foreign Ministry said the demolition enforced a new law banning UNRWA, noting that Israel owns the site and rejecting the agency\u2019s claims that the move violated international law. <\/p>\n
Israel has long claimed the agency has an anti-Israel bias, often with little evidence. <\/p>\n
UNRWA\u2019s mandate is to provide aid and services to about 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. <\/p>\n
The group has for years maintained infrastructure in refugee camps and also run schools and provided healthcare. But its operations were curtailed last year when Israel\u2019s parliament, or Knesset, passed legislation severing ties and banning it from functioning in what it defines as Israel \u2014 including East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
The agency said the demolitions could imperil operations at its vocational center in Qalandiya and health facility in Shuafat, where it continues to provide education and health services.<\/p>\n
An Israeli flag was seen hoisted above the facility in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, where some Israeli politicians arrived on the scene to celebrate the organization\u2019s fate. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called it \u201ca historic day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018This must be a wake-up call\u2019<\/p>\n
The demolition marked the culmination of years of criticism from Israel and its leaders, who contend that UNRWA harbors pro-Palestinian leanings and maintains ties or employs members of militant groups such as Hamas. <\/p>\n
Since the start of the war with Hamas more than two years ago, Israel has ramped up such attacks, accusing UNRWA of being infiltrated by the militant group and saying the militants used the agency\u2019s facilities and seized aid. It has provided little evidence for the claims, which the U.N. has denied. The International Court of Justice said in October that Israel must allow the agency to provide humanitarian assistance in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Since Israel passed the law banning the agency last year, its facilities \u2014 schools and health centers \u2014 and its headquarters have repeatedly been closed, raided or left unprotected. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis must be a wake-up call,\u201d Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA\u2019s commissioner-general, said in a statement on X. \u201cWhat 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Registry of names<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s 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 organizations to not hire staff involved in activities that \u201cdelegitimize Israel\u201d or support boycotts, demanding they register lists of names as a condition of being allowed to work.<\/p>\n
Israel told dozens of groups \u2014 including Doctors Without Borders and CARE \u2014 that their licenses would expire at the end of 2025. The organizations say the rules are arbitrary and warned that the new ban would harm a civilian population desperately in need of humanitarian aid.<\/p>\n
Settler violence in the West Bank rose last year<\/p>\n
The Israeli military said Tuesday that attacks carried out by Jewish settlers against Palestinians and Israeli security forces in the West Bank increased by 27% last year compared with 2024.<\/p>\n
There were 867 reports of \u201cnationalistic crimes\u201d \u2014 with the number of severe incidents up by more than 50%, according to internal statistics from the Israeli military and the country\u2019s Shin Bet domestic security service.<\/p>\n
Mounting settler violence in the West Bank has emptied villages since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted, according to B\u2019Tselem, an Israeli rights group helping the residents.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military has carried out large-scale operations in the West Bank targeting militants that have killed hundreds of Palestinians. Palestinian attacks on Israelis also have increased.<\/p>\n
Israeli authorities have a mixed relationship with settlers, at times dismantling unauthorized outposts while also deploying forces to protect them from Palestinians.<\/p>\n
Metz writes for the Associated Press. Julia Frankel and Shlomo Mor in Jerusalem and Edith M. Lederer and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Israeli forces on Tuesday targeted at least two United Nations facilities, pushing forward with a crackdown against the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[73346,3796,45871,42,23023,46,56464,43,5162,133137,133139,40,38,41,39,4498,133136,133138,133135,1661,133140],"class_list":["post-249198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-demolition","tag-east-jerusalem","tag-facility","tag-headlines","tag-international-law","tag-israel","tag-militant-group","tag-news","tag-organization","tag-palestinian-refugee","tag-tie","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-unrwa","tag-vocational-school","tag-west-bank-director","tag-works-agency","tag-year","tag-young-palestinians"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}