Israel Demolishes UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees Headquarters

Israeli demolition teams began bulldozing the East Jerusalem headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees on Tuesday, in an escalation of the campaign against the agency by Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government. Under the protection of Israeli forces, bulldozers began tearing down buildings in the compound belonging to the UN Relief and Works Agency in East Jerusalem, which was one of the agency’s key sites until Israel ordered it to cease operating there last year. Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s commissioner general, said that the operation, which began at around 7am local time, was an “unprecedented attack against a United Nations agency and its premises”. “[This is] a new level of open and deliberate defiance of international law, including of the privileges and immunities of the United Nations, by the State of Israel,” he said, adding that Israel was “obliged to protect and respect the inviolability of UN premises”. “This must be a wake-up call. What 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.” UNRWA supports Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as elsewhere in the Middle East. Israel’s far-right reacted to the demolition with jubilation, with national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir hailing it as a “historic day” and posting a video of himself standing in front of a digger as it ploughed into one of the buildings. Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the “seizure of this compound by Israeli authorities was carried out in accordance with both Israeli and international law”, and was the “implementation of existing Israeli legislation” concerning the agency. Parts of Israel’s political establishment have long been hostile to UNRWA, arguing that its mandate to care for Palestinian refugees displaced by the 1948 war that created Israel perpetuated, rather than helped to resolve, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But tensions over the agency intensified sharply after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which ignited the war in Gaza. In 2024, the Israeli parliament passed a law banning UNRWA from operating in Israel. It also banned Israeli officials from co-operating with the agency. The move came after Israeli officials accused 19 of UNRWA’s 13,000 staff in Gaza of participating in Hamas’s assault — during which militants killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and took 250 hostage. Israeli officials alleged that UNRWA had been broadly infiltrated by Hamas, and UNRWA sacked several staff members in response to the accusations. But in an advisory opinion last year, the UN’s top court said Israel had not substantiated its allegations that a significant number of UNRWA staff were members of the Palestinian militant group. The fact that nine staff were sacked over “possible involvement” in October 7 was “insufficient to support a conclusion that UNRWA, as a whole . . . is not a neutral organisation”, the International Court of Justice said. It also said Israel must allow UNRWA to provide humanitarian assistance in Gaza, where Israel’s two-year offensive against Hamas killed more than 71,000 people, according to Palestinian officials, and caused a humanitarian catastrophe.