JERUSALEM – Tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem are set to lose access to education, healthcare, and other essential services as an Israeli ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) takes effect on January 30.
The Israeli government has ordered UNRWA to vacate its East Jerusalem compound and cease operations under a law passed last year that outlaws the agency and prohibits Israeli authorities from having contact with it. At UNRWA’s offices in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, workers were seen packing boxes and loading portable buildings onto trucks on January 27.
“It’s an unacceptable decision,” said Jonathan Fowler, a spokesperson for UNRWA. “The people that we serve… we are not able to tell them what is going to happen to our services as of the end of this week.”
Israel has not announced provisions for replacing UNRWA’s activities, and the Israeli prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
UNRWA has for decades run schools and clinics in East Jerusalem, the eastern part of the city that Israel has occupied since the 1967 war, for tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees who have no nationality. “We have everything here for us. When I heard that it will close, I was very sad because here is a place for people in need and for people who don’t have money to pay for medication,” said refugee Sara Saeed at the UNRWA medical center in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Medical center Director Hamza Al Jibrini said the facility serves 30,000 refugees, including patients with diabetes and high blood pressure, pregnant women, and children who receive vaccinations. “Where they will go?” asked head of nursing Manal AlKhayat.
Israel’s ban only directly covers Israeli territory, which Israel considers East Jerusalem to be. UNRWA also operates in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, but it was unclear how the law will affect UNRWA’s work there.
UNRWA was established some 75 years ago, serving around 750,000 Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war at the time of the creation of the state of Israel. Its sprawling headquarters are in a prime position not far from Jerusalem’s Old City, which is home to sites holy to Christians, Jews, and Muslims. The agency has long been a thorn in the eye of Israeli governments that considered the agency fundamentally hostile to Israel.
Israel regularly accuses the agency of anti-Israel bias and has also claimed its staff includes members of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that launched the deadly cross-border raid on Israel on October 7, 2023. Israel calls for UNRWA’s responsibilities to be taken over by other UN bodies such as its main refugee agency.
The UN rejects accusations of bias and says that UNRWA’s expertise is irreplaceable, particularly in Gaza. A UN investigation found that nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the Hamas attack. The agency fired them but said Israel had not provided evidence of more widespread involvement by its staff. UNRWA employs around 30,000 people in the region and some 13,000 in the Gaza Strip.
More than 200 UNRWA staff have been killed in Gaza since the Gaza war started. Around 1,200 Israelis and foreigners were killed in the October 7, 2023 attack and another 250 were taken hostage into Gaza, Israel says. Over 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s military launched a retaliatory offensive, according to Gaza’s health ministry.