The Israeli government issued an announcement on Thursday declaring that it would seize the Jerusalem headquarters of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinians and turn it into a housing complex.
UNRWA is the official United Nations arm to aid Palestinians. It is largely responsible for education and health care in Gaza, where its operations allow the ruling entity there, Hamas, to invest almost entirely in genocidal jihadist terrorism rather than take care of any government duties.
The United Nations has faced waves of criticism and defunding in the past year over the role UNRWA has played in enabling Hamas. While years of evidence have indicated that Hamas exploits UNRWA facilities to hide its terrorist infrastructure and UNRWA schools indoctrinate children into hating Jews and supporting radical Islam, the current condemnation is a result of evidence indicating that UNRWA employees participated in the slaughter of Israelis on October 7, 2023.
On that day, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and engaged in door-to-door executions of entire families, gang rapes (including instances of women raped and executed), mass abductions, the desecration of corpses, infanticide, and other atrocities. Hamas terrorists killed an estimated 1,200 people and abducted about 250, of whom 97 are believed to remain in captivity.
The Israeli government revealed in July that it had identified 100 terrorists affiliated with Hamas and similar groups working for UNRWA. It also identified several UNRWA employees who actively participated in the October 7 attack.
As a result, Israel has been working to limit the malignant influence of UNRWA. On Thursday, the Israel Land Authority (ILA) announced that UNRWA would lose its site in Jerusalem, which is now set to become an apartment complex.
“The UNRWA complex, located in Ma’alot Dafna, Jerusalem, is planned to become a housing project with 1,440 units,” the Jerusalem Post reported on Friday. The move followed an announcement from the Israel Land Authority that UNRWA would be forced to leave the site and pay overdue rent.
The move received some positive response in Israel.
“Congratulations to ILA for the quick action. The UNRWA employees who were involved in the October 7th massacre must be punished most severely, and the rest deported,” the Post quoted Maj. Shay Rosengarten, chairman of Im Tirtzu organization, as saying.
Likud lawmaker Dan Iloz similarly applauded the move as “an important step, but not enough” in comments cited by the newspaper Israel Hayom, condemning UNRWA as a “hotbed for terrorism under a humanitarian guise.”
As of Friday, the leadership of UNRWA claimed that Israeli authorities did not directly inform them that they would have to vacate their Jerusalem office to make room for housing.
“We’ve only seen through the media” and “not received any formal notification,” Farhan Haq, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said. Haq insisted that Israel “honor and respect” the “inviolability” of United Nations sites.
The United Nations has also protested against a bill that passed committee in the Knesset on Monday, the anniversary of the October 7 slaughter, that would formally cut ties between Israel and UNRWA. The bill would make it unlawful for UNRWA employees to have contact with Israeli officials, and they would lose their diplomatic status and “economic benefits.”
UNRWA is operating in Israel as a result of an agreement signed in 1967.
“Senior Israeli officials have described destroying UNRWA as a war goal. Legislation to end our operations is ready for final adoption by the Israeli Knesset,” the head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, lamented this week. “It seeks to ban UNRWA’s presence and operations in the territory of Israel, revoking its privileges and immunities, in violation of international law. If the bills are adopted, the consequences will be severe.”
Guterres independently said on October 8 that he had appealed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly to oppose the bill ousting UNRWA from Israel.
“It would effectively end coordination to protect UN convoys, offices and shelters serving hundreds of thousands of people,” Guterres asserted, claiming the bill would also cut children’s access to UNRWA education.
Education is a major part of UNRWA’s mandate in Gaza. Years of reporting have revealed that UNRWA schools use textbooks that actively indoctrinate children into antisemitism. One such report from 2017, for example, found that Gazan children are taught that Israel is not a country and Jewish holy sites in the region are Muslim sites “usurped by the Jews.”
UNRWA schools also serve as infrastructure to hide Hamas weapons and terrorists. As the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have engaged in self-defense operations in Gaza, they have found a wide variety of terrorist facilities hidden in UNRWA hospitals, offices, and schools. The UNRWA Gaza City headquarters, the IDF found, housed a Hamas “command center” before Israeli forces neutralized it.
UNRWA has also been found to have played a major role in the October 7 atrocities. Israel in January announced that it had identified 13 UNRWA employees who had directly participated in the October 7 attack. UNRWA admitted in August that it had independently confirmed nine of its employees “may have been involved” in the October 7 attack.
“The employment of these individuals will be terminated in the interests of the Agency,” UNRWA stated.
Another group of UNRWA employees did not partake in October 7, but actively cheered on the terrorism. The watchdog organization UN Watch found a group chat on the encrypted social media application Telegram made up of about 3,000 UNRWA members that was bustling with pro-Hamas activity on the day of the attack
“Our new report identifies more than 25 other UNRWA teachers in the chat group who celebrated Jihadi terrorism and the murder of Jews,” Hillel Neuer, the head of UN Watch, told Congress at a hearing in January. The employees of the agency, he asserted, “regularly call to murder Jews and create teaching materials that glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis and incite antisemitism.”
