According to Palestinian sources, Jerusalem municipality workers, accompanied by Israeli police security forces, arrived early Monday morning at the UNRWA headquarters located in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem and forcibly entered the compound. The site, which has stood largely empty of staff for many months, was guarded only by a small number of security personnel. Israeli forces arrived with trucks and forklifts, cut off all communication systems, and loaded equipment onto the trucks, including furniture, computer hardware and additional property. Before leaving the compound, workers removed the UN flag from the roof of the building and raised the Israeli flag in its place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The operation in Jerusalem was carried out under Israel\u2019s \u201cLaw to Terminate UNRWA Activities within the Sovereign Territory of the State of Israel, 2024,\u201d passed by the Knesset following Hamas\u2019 deadly October 7, 2023 attack, after it emerged that numerous UNRWA employees had participated in the assault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among other provisions, the law stipulates that UNRWA \u201cshall not operate any representation, provide any service, or carry out any activity, directly or indirectly, within the sovereign territory of the State of Israel.\u201d Following Israel\u2019s demand, UNRWA halted staff activity at its Jerusalem headquarters, but did not remove the building\u2019s contents, despite repeated requests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has expressed outrage over the Israeli move. Writing on X, Lazzarini said the action represents \u201ca blatant disregard of Israel\u2019s obligation, as a UN member state, to protect and respect the sanctity of United Nations premises.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added that \u201cafter months of harassment including arson attacks in 2024, hate demonstrations and intimidation, fueled by a sustained disinformation campaign, as well as legislation passed by the Israeli Knesset in violation of Israel\u2019s international commitments, UNRWA staff were forced to evacuate the compound earlier this year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lazzarini further stressed that \u201cregardless of any local measures taken, the compound retains its status as UN premises, immune from any form of interference.\u201d He noted that Israel is a party to the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, which renders UN premises inviolable and UN property immune from search, seizure, or legal proceedings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is Israel heading toward an unavoidable confrontation with UNRWA following the Jerusalem operation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
According to Palestinian sources, Jerusalem municipality workers, accompanied by Israeli police security forces, arrived early Monday morning at the UNRWA headquarters located in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem and forcibly entered the compound. The site, which has stood largely empty of staff for many months, was guarded only by a small number of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":125006,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"UNRWA Flag Replaced in Jerusalem \u2013 Is a Clash Looming?","_seopress_titles_desc":"Trucks remove equipment from UNRWA\u2019s Sheikh Jarrah headquarters as tensions rise in Jerusalem","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10327,9320,9314],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-125005","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking","8":"category-jerusalem-news","9":"category-main-item"},"acf":{"subtitle":"Trucks remove equipment from UNRWA\u2019s Sheikh Jarrah headquarters as tensions rise in Jerusalem"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}