Israeli authorities raid multiple UNRWA facilities in Jerusalem

By Akiva Van Koningsveld, Canaan Lidor, JNS

Jerusalem city inspectors accompanied by police entered several facilities on Tuesday in eastern Jerusalem of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), whose activity is illegal in Israel, according to laws that went into effect last month.

Aryeh King, the deputy mayor of Jerusalem, said in a statement that for the first time since the establishment of the modern-day State of Israel, “the Israeli government and the Jerusalem Municipality entered a compound owned by the KKL-Jewish National Fund, which UNRWA has been using without permission. Instead of serving as a Nazi base of operations, the 80-dunam [20 acre] complex will be used for Jerusalem Municipality facilities.”

King was referring to UNRWA’s so-called Kalandia Training Center, Channel 14 reported, adding that it has been seized and that Border Police officers responded with crowd-dispersal means to rioting at the site during the raid.

Additional raids occurred in the Nahal Ha-Egoz neighborhood and Kfar Hashiloach, the Hamas-affiliated Shehab News Agency reported. Another facility was raided in Kfar Akev, near the training center.

A police spokesperson told JNS that the officers provided security for municipal inspectors and employees carrying out their missions.

Israel has said that UNRWA, the U.N. aid agency for Palestinians, has been so thoroughly penetrated by Hamas and other terrorist groups that it is essentially itself a terrorist enterprise.

UNRWA has denied this, but following the discovery of evidence linking dozens of UNRWA staff and facilities to the Hamas-led massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Knesset banned its activity in Israel and outlawed any contact between officials and UNRWA representatives.

Authorities closed down two main offices of UNRWA in Jerusalem, prompting the group’s senior management to leave Israel, in addition to Judea and Samaria.

Still, more than two weeks after the laws went into effect, UNRWA facilities were operational in eastern Jerusalem, Kan News reported on Monday.

The reports led to criticism of a failure to enforce the laws, including by human-rights activist Shai Glick of the B’Tsalmo group, who threatened to show up at the illegally operating UNRWA facilities.

The Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “ordered the immediate implementation of the UNRWA law, which was passed in the Knesset with broad support. There are no restrictions on implementing the Prime Minister’s directive.”

The cabinet minister responsible for Jerusalem, Meir Porush, said: “I welcome the Prime Minister’s directive to immediately enforce the law to remove UNRWA from Jerusalem. There is no place for U.N. supporters of terrorism in our city.”

His ministry, “together with the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and the Jerusalem Municipality, are prepared with all alternatives to the services provided by UNRWA in eastern Jerusalem.”