Israeli forces raid, shut down UNRWA-run training center north of Jerusalem

Israeli forces on Tuesday raided the UN agency for Palestinian refugees’ (UNRWA) Qalandia Training Center north of occupied East Jerusalem and shut down its entrances, according to Palestinian authorities, Anadolu reports.

The Jerusalem Governorate said in a statement that Israeli forces stormed the UNRWA-run institute in the Airport Road area north of Jerusalem.

It said troops closed the institute’s main entrance and the area’s main road, fired large quantities of tear gas, and remained deployed inside the facility and its surroundings.

No further details were immediately available.

The raid came after the Jerusalem Governorate warned on June 11 of an Israeli plan targeting the removal of UNRWA’s vocational training institute in Qalandia.

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At the time, the governorate said the Israeli municipality was advancing a plan to build a “new educational complex” on land that has hosted the institute for decades between Kafr Aqab town and Qalandia refugee camp.

According to UNRWA, the Qalandia Vocational Training Center serves around 350 male and female students aged 15–19. The facility was established on land made available to the agency by the Jordanian government before Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967.

The Jerusalem Governorate said the project represented “another step in Israel’s policy of undermining UNRWA’s work in occupied Jerusalem” and carried “political and settlement-related objectives.”

Palestinians say Israel uses infrastructure and education projects as a pretext to confiscate land and undermine Palestinian and international institutions operating in occupied East Jerusalem, as part of efforts to consolidate its occupation and alter the city’s demographic and cultural character.

They say land confiscation, forced displacement of Palestinians and illegal settlement expansion are among the tools Israel uses to Judaize occupied East Jerusalem and erase its Arab and Islamic identity.

Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state, in line with international resolutions that do not recognize Israel’s occupation of the city in 1967 or its subsequent annexation in 1980.

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