Israeli police launch major raid on last remaining UNRWA facility in Jerusalem
Nir Hasson reports in Haaretz on 25 August 2026:
Israeli police raided an UNRWA vocational training center in northern Jerusalem on Tuesday for the seventh time in recent months, ordering staff to evacuate and shutting the facility in what National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said was an effort to permanently close it.
The center, located near the Jerusalem neighborhood of Kafr Aqab, was the last UNRWA facility still operating in the city and trains hundreds of teenagers from West Bank refugee camps in trades including carpentry and auto electrical work.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he ordered the evacuation of the UNRWA compound, accusing the UN agency of involvement in the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023. “In accordance with my instructions and in furtherance of the law we passed, the evacuation of the UNRWA compound in Kafr Aqab, Jerusalem, began today,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
“The State of Israel will not allow an organization whose employees were involved in terrorism and the October 7 massacre to operate on its territory and will use all means necessary to act against it,” he added.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also participated in the raid and arrived at the site accompanied by a crew from the pro-government Channel 14. The far-right minister said the latest raid is intended to shut the facility down permanently. Just a day earlier, diplomats from 24 countries, including Germany, Spain, Japan, Switzerland, Britain, Turkey and Poland, visited the compound.
Dozens of Border Police officers ordered all employees to leave the center on Tuesday morning and closed the facility. Ben-Gvir said authorities would also begin removing equipment from the site.
Israeli government officials familiar with the operation expressed frustration over Ben-Gvir’s presence, arguing that he was turning the closure into a media spectacle and making it harder to convey to local residents that the move would ultimately benefit them.
UNRWA said it “unequivocally condemns this unauthorized and deeply concerning incursion,” adding that the center “is a United Nations facility protected by the privileges and immunities afforded to the Organization under international law. Its inviolability must be fully respected.”
The Palestinian presidency in Ramallah called on the UN Security Council to convene urgently and “take binding measures to stop Israeli attacks” on UN facilities and demanded protection for UNRWA institutions.
In a statement issued Tuesday morning, the Jerusalem Municipality said the site would undergo rapid renovations in the coming days and reopen next week as a boys’ high school for Kafr Aqab residents. According to the municipality, the school will teach the Israeli curriculum, rather than the Palestinian curriculum taught in UNRWA schools and most schools in East Jerusalem.
The municipality said it plans to build an educational campus at the site in the coming years, comprising six schools with 140 classrooms, as well as a community center, swimming pool, sports complex, daycare centers, a maternal and child health clinic, a mosque and a park.
The municipality also claimed that Kafr Aqab residents had “requested the opening of new educational institutions in the neighborhood and expressed support for the move.” It said it intends to expropriate the land for these purposes.
According to UNRWA officials, the land is leased from the Jordanian government. Israeli land records, however, show that parts of the 90-dunam compound are owned by the Jewish National Fund, while others are privately owned.
In late January 2025, two laws aimed at restricting the activities of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, in Israel came into effect. One bans the agency from operating inside Israel, while the other prohibits Israeli authorities from maintaining contact with it. Israel accuses UNRWA of supporting terrorism.
Since the laws took effect about a year and a half ago, police have raided and shut down UNRWA facilities in East Jerusalem, including its headquarters, schools, clinics, offices and warehouses. As a result, the agency also stopped providing sewage and garbage collection services in the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, which it had provided since the 1960s.
Last week, work began at the vacant UNRWA school building in the Shuafat refugee camp. Palestinian landowners whose property was used to build the school in the 1960s reached an agreement with the Jerusalem Municipality, under which a municipal school will open at the site. The UN condemned the move, saying it violates international law, which grants the institution immunity.
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