How Israel’s efforts to expel UNRWA from Jerusalem and crack down on West Bank refugee camps are connected
Archive photo of Israeli forces at Kalandia Training Centre on 27 July 2026
Qassam Muaddi reports in Mondoweiss on 24 August 2026:
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is in charge of Palestinian refugee camps in Palestine and the region, is bracing for an “imminent” Israeli takeover of its premises in Jerusalem, according to a statement by the agency’s West Bank affairs director, Roland Friedrich, on August 14.
In the days prior to the statement, Israeli municipal authorities in Jerusalem entered the agency’s premises in the Shufaat refugee camp north of Jerusalem, which includes UNRWA’s schools complex, health center, and the camp’s community services office, the statement said. Private contractors began work in the buildings as well.
Israeli media quoted Israel’s Jerusalem municipality as saying that the properties do not belong to UNRWA but are privately owned, with which the municipality has signed use agreements. UNRWA, however, says the Israeli push to take over its premises in Shufaat is running simultaneously to similar moves on the agency’s vocational training center in the Qalandia refugee camp, also north of Jerusalem.
The moves in Shufaat and Qalandia are the latest phase of a long Israeli campaign to remove UNRWA’s presence from the city, and with it, the legal recognition of a refugee population Israel does not want acknowledged within the city’s limits.