Jerusalem moves to replace UNRWA services as Israeli ban begins

January 31, 2025 by Pesach Benson
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An Israeli ban on the embattled United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees went into effect on Thursday, prohibiting the agency from operating within Israel and barring Israeli officials from cooperating with it.

Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Arieh King outside the Jerusalem headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency as an Israeli ban on the agency took effect on Jan. 30, 2025. Photo by Elad Zagman/TPS-IL

In Jerusalem, where the UNRWA’s headquarters are located, Deputy Mayor Arieh King told The Press Service of Israel that the municipality would take over the agency’s services, primarily health care and education.

“From today, the freedom of activity and freedom of movement and freedom of doing and thinking like they have a special right, that was what the UNRWA employees had until today, from today it’s finished,” he told TPS-IL.

“For years I tried to convince people how dangerous UNRWA [curriculum] is by brainwashing a generation of young Arab citizens and residents of Jerusalem,” he said. “The families, the children of these schools have already received a message from the government that they have a choice where to put their children to study. And they will be accepted to be part of the school that they would choose in their neighborhood.”

King said around 900 children attended six UNRWA kindergartens and schools within Jerusalem.

The agency had offices in the western Jerusalem neighbourhood of Maalot Dafna and the eastern Jerusalem neighbourhood of Kafr Aqab. King previously told TPS-IL that UNRWA undermined Israeli sovereignty over the capital.

UNRWA has been under fire for months with Israeli officials demanding the agency be stripped of its authority in Gaza and defunded amid revelations that members of the agency’s staff participated in Hamas’s October 7 attacks.

Palestinian refugees are the only refugee population with its own dedicated UN agency. The rest of the world’s refugees fall under the mandate of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Legislation passed by the Knesset stripped UNRWA’s diplomatic immunity, prohibited it from operating in Israeli sovereign territory, and barred Israeli officials from cooperating with the agency. Without work permits for foreign staff or coordination of passage at checkpoints, the agency will not be able to function in Judea, Samaria or the Gaza Strip. Israel withdrew its diplomatic recognition of UNRWA in November.

In early January, UN Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog organization, accused UNRWA of having an “unholy alliance” with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Its 55-page report accused Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, and his colleagues of enabling infiltration by Hamas and other terror groups.

According to the report, over 10% of UNRWA’s senior educators in Gaza are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Israeli authorities have also alleged that hundreds of UNRWA’s 13,000 Gazan employees, including teachers, are active members of Hamas. It also found that the terror groups influenced UNRWA policies, indoctrinated Palestinian children through agency schools, and established military infrastructure near UNRWA’s Gaza facilities.

More than 100 survivors of Hamas’s October 7 attacks filed a $1 billion lawsuit against UNRWA in June, accusing the agency of “aiding and abetting” the terror group. According to the suit, the lead plaintiff, 84-year-old Ditza Heiman of Kibbutz Nir Oz, was held captive for seven weeks in the home of a Palestinian man who said he was a UNRWA teacher at a boy’s school. The suit also alleges that UNRWA enacted an employee payment scheme to benefit Hamas in violation of UN protocols.

Israel’s largest bank froze UNRWA’s account in February over suspicious financial transfers that the agency failed to adequately explain. That same month, Israeli forces discovered a Hamas complex located directly under the UNRWA’s Gaza City headquarters and connected directly to the agency’s electricity system. The facility included numerous computer servers belonging to the terror group.

At least 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7.

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