yoga-mahendra
Israeli security forces raided and shuttered a United Nations vocational college in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday, closing the final facility still run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the city.
The operation targeted the Qalandia Training Centre, an institution founded in 1952 that each year taught roughly 340 young Palestinians trades such as carpentry, vehicle mechanics and plumbing. Although situated in East Jerusalem, the campus lies between the Qalandia and Kfar Aqab neighborhoods on the far side of Israel's separation barrier, making it reachable for students from refugee camps across the West Bank.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the incursion, with his spokesman Stéphane Dujarric stating that all UN premises are inviolable under international law and shielded from interference of any kind. The UN chief is alarmed, his spokesman added, because the closure will strip young people of the vocational education they had been receiving.
Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir took part in the raid, which involved large numbers of officers, and posted footage of himself seated at the institute director's desk, telling a pro-government TV crew that UNRWA would not be returning. The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed he ordered the compound's evacuation, asserting that no organization whose employees were implicated in terrorism or the October 7, 2023 massacre should operate on Israeli territory. UNRWA has strongly rejected those allegations.
Israeli intelligence has claimed at least 19 agency staff participated in the Hamas-led cross-border assault, which killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. A UN inquiry found evidence suggesting possible involvement in nine cases, leading to those employees' dismissal, while determining the claims were unsupported or unfounded in the remaining instances.
The seizure follows legislation that took effect last year barring UNRWA from operating in areas Israel considers its own, including East Jerusalem — territory captured from Jordan in 1967 and later annexed in a move unrecognized by most of the world. The same laws prohibit Israeli state bodies from any contact with the agency. Closure orders were also issued against six UNRWA schools in the city, ending classroom instruction for around 800 Palestinian children.
Staff were expelled during Tuesday's raid, and Israeli officials say equipment is being cleared out with plans to convert part of the site into a school. UNRWA denounced what it called an unauthorized entry into its facility, insisting that armed forces entering UN grounds without consent is unacceptable.
The Palestinian foreign ministry urged the international community to take swift, effective steps to safeguard the college and secure the return of its personnel. Established in the wake of the 1948 war to assist displaced Palestinians, UNRWA continues to serve more than 900,000 registered refugees in the West Bank, and many Palestinians view the campaign against it as an effort to erase the refugee issue and their claim of return.
Comments (0)