Israel seizes UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem and demolishes some structures

Flanked by bulldozers, Israeli officials seized the Jerusalem headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) on Tuesday and oversaw the demolition of some structures in its compound. The move furthers what Israeli officials described as a crackdown on UNRWA after the government passed sweeping legislation that criminalized the agency's operations.

In a statement defending the decision, Oren Marmorstein, a spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry, said UNRWA "has long ceased to be a humanitarian aid organization, serving instead as a greenhouse for terrorism." Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, called the action "a new level of open & deliberate defiance of international law" in a post on social media.

UNRWA, founded in 1949 to serve Palestinians displaced in the wars surrounding Israel's establishment and their descendants, has long been a leading aid agency in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Knesset has passed laws that banned the agency and severely curbed its activity in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, stripping UNRWA of diplomatic immunity and barring its facilities from receiving electricity and water.

Israeli officials have accused UNRWA's Gaza branch of being compromised and named 19 employees they say participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack; an internal U.N. inquiry found that at least nine employees may have participated and the agency fired them.

Key Topics

World, Unrwa, Jerusalem, Israel, Knesset, Philippe Lazzarini