Key Takeaways:
- This week, Israel took over the property of an UNRWA vocational school in northern Jerusalem.
- This move is part of Israel’s barring of the UN agency from its territory due to the organization’s employment of terrorists and terror supporters, as well as its continued dissemination of hate-filled and violent materials.
- Instead of a school run by an inept and corrupt organization, the land will now serve as a multi-use complex for tens of thousands of the neighborhood’s Arab residents.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was placed in the spotlight once again when Israeli forces took over an UNRWA facility in northern Jerusalem that had served as a vocational school.
This follows the dismantling of UNRWA’s headquarters by Israel in January 2026.
Both incidents follow Israel’s 2024 decision to bar the UN agency from operating in Israeli territory, including the entire city of Jerusalem.
While the media and the United Nations are predictably aghast at Israel’s actions, feigning shock at how a UN body could be treated this way, Israel’s barring of UNRWA from its territory and subsequent reclamation of property used by the agency make sense when you zoom out and look at the context through which these actions are taking place.
UNRWA was founded in 1949 as a provider of welfare and relief services to Palestinians who were displaced by the violence during the closing days of the British Mandate and the Israeli War of Independence.
However, unlike the Jewish refugees from the same time period who were quickly absorbed by the nascent Jewish state, the Palestinian refugees were left in a perpetual position of statelessness and never integrated into the Arab states to which they had been displaced.
UNRWA played a large role in the perpetuation of the Palestinian refugee issue by extending the definition of who is a Palestinian refugee. The agency allowed all descendants of male refugees to claim this status, and allowed those with alternative citizenships to maintain their refugee status (a benefit not given to other refugees).
As HonestReporting noted earlier this year, “Rather than resettlement, rehabilitation, or integration, UNRWA has institutionalized a frozen political and national identity rooted in 1948.”
Before October 7, UNRWA was heavily criticized for its role in not settling the Palestinian refugee problem but instead perpetuating it for political ends. Its schools and summer camps were used for the indoctrination of children into antisemitism and violence, and a blind eyes was given to terror groups hiding weapons in its facilities. UNRWA was criticized for not acting as a neutral humanitarian organization but more like an activist group that had taken an active antagonistic role in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
This all came to a head following the terrorist invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
In the weeks and months that followed, investigations into UNRWA found that up to 1,200 UNRWA employees in Gaza (10% of the organization’s workforce in the coastal enclave) were reported to have ties to the two main Palestinian terror groups in the area, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
In addition, it was recently reported that 101 UNRWA employees were referred for suspension or debarment from receiving U.S. aid funds due to their active membership in Hamas or participation in the October 7 atrocities, including attacking Israeli targets and participating in the abduction of Israelis to Gaza.
Instead of taking seriously the close terror ties of its employees in Gaza and other areas where the organization is active, UNRWA has belittled these findings and diminished its responsibility in weeding out the terror supporters among its ranks.
In addition, a recent study has shown that UNRWA has not reformed its schools and continues to disseminate material that is antisemitic and glorifies terrorism.
Due to its perpetuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, relations between its employees and terrorist organizations, and continued distribution of inflammatory educational materials, Israel finally cut ties with UNRWA in October 2024, barring the organization from operating within its borders, including Jerusalem.
As part of its anti-UNRWA legislation, this week Israeli state took control of a vocational school that UNRWA had run since the 1950s run in the Kafr Aqab neighborhood, which falls under municipal Jerusalem.
While UNRWA claims that the land for the school was given to it by Jordan in 1952 (when it illegally occupied the area), Israel maintains that it was bought in 1937 by the Jewish National Fund and the United Nations has no rights to it.
Israel has allocated this land for a municipal complex that will serve the Arab residents of Kafr Aqab. This complex will include a boys’ high school (due to open this year), additional schools, a mosque, healthcare facilities, and a sports center.
For over 70 years, the land was used by an inept and corrupt “aid” organization that perpetuates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a school for roughly 350 students. Now, it will be turned into a multi-use complex that will serve tens of thousands of the neighborhood’s residents, including students who will receive a proper education, not indoctrination.
Maybe this is why the media and the United Nations are so up in arms – it flies in the face of their anti-Israel narrative.
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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
