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Israel to seize UNRWA's Jerusalem headquarters to build settler housing

October 10, 2024 at 3:46 pm

A visit to UNRWA Health Center in East Jerusalem old city, part of a diplomatic mission to Israel and the Palestinian territories, in Rammalah, Palestina, Thursday 16 May 2024. [DIRK WAEM/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images]

The Israel Land Authority is set to seize the land on which UNRWA’s headquarters lie in occupied East Jerusalem to build housing for illegal settlers.

According to information released today, the UNRWA headquarters are set to be converted into 1,440 housing units.

This is the latest attack against UNRWA and its facilities by Israel, which has long sought to see the organisation closed, advancing a bill designating the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) as a “terrorist organisation” and two others, which were advanced last week, which mean UNRWA will no longer be permitted to “operate any institution, provide any service, or conduct any activity, whether directly or indirectly” in Israel.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has warned that if the bills are adopted, “the consequences will be severe”

Addressing the UN Security Council yesterday he said that if UNRWA is banned in Israel, “The entire humanitarian response in Gaza … may disintegrate. In the West Bank, the delivery of education, primary health care to hundred [sic] of thousand Palestine Refugees  would grind to a halt.”

“The anti-UNRWA legislation, part of a broader campaign to dismantle the Agency, seeks to strip Palestinians from their refugee status, & change – unilaterally – the parameters for a future political solution,” he added.

Israel has lobbied hard to have UNRWA closed as it is the only UN agency to have a specific mandate to look after the basic needs of Palestinian refugees. If the agency no longer exists, argues Israel, then the refugee issue must no longer exist, and the legitimate right for Palestinian refugees to return to their land will be unnecessary. Israel has denied that right of return since the late 1940s, even though its own membership of the UN was made conditional upon Palestinian refugees being allowed to return to their homes and land.

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