UNRWA warned that some 800 boys and girls are directly impacted by these closure orders and are likely to miss finishing their school year.
Israeli officials from the Jerusalem Municipality, accompanied by security forces, stormed six UNRWA schools in East Jerusalem on Tuesday and ordered their closure within 30 days, the UN agency said.
The authorities “forcibly entered” the schools and “gave closure orders for the schools effective in 30 days,” UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini stated on X.
This morning, Israeli officials from the Jerusalem Municipality, accompanied by Israeli Security Forces, forcibly entered six @UNRWA schools in East Jerusalem. They gave closure orders for the schools effective in 30 days.
UNRWA schools in occupied East Jerusalem are…
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) April 8, 2025
Lazzarini said that UNRWA schools in occupied East Jerusalem are installations providing education to Palestinian refugee children.
“Some 800 boys and girls are directly impacted by these closure orders and are likely to miss finishing their school year,” he stressed.
Lazzarini emphasized that UNRWA schools “are protected by the privileges and immunities” of the UN, adding that Tuesday’s “unauthorised entries and issuance of closure orders are a violation of these protections and represent a revocation of Israel’s obligations under international law.”
Knesset Legislation
He pointed out that the “illegal closure orders” come in the wake of Israeli Knesset legislation “seeking to curtail” UNRWA operations.
Lazzarini said UNRWA was committed “to stay and deliver ” education and other basic services to “Palestine Refugees in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in accordance with the General Assembly resolution mandated to the Agency.”
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry denounced the Israeli authorities’ decision to shut down six UNRWA schools in Shu’fat refugee camp, the neighborhoods of Silwan, Wadi al-Joz, Sur Baher, the Anadolu news agency reported.
The ministry called for “the intensified international efforts to preserve UNRWA’s mandate and ensure its continuity.”
The Palestinian Council of Ministers also decried the closure of schools and called on the UN “to assume its legal and moral responsibilities to protect UNRWA institutions in Jerusalem,” the report added.
Previous Schools’ Closure
In February, Israeli occupation forces and municipal authorities also “forcefully entered” a UNRWA training center and three schools in East Jerusalem, and ordered its immediate evacuation.
The raid impacted “250 children in three UNRWA schools in East Jerusalem, +350 trainees in the Kalandia Training Centre, a large United Nations compound,” Lazzarini said at the time.
In October 2024, the Israeli Knesset (parliament) passed two laws banning UNRWA’s operations in Israel and areas under its occupation and prohibiting Israeli authorities from having any contact with the agency. The laws took effect on January 30.
Israel alleges that UNRWA employees were involved in the resistance operation of October 7, 2023 – a charge vehemently denied by the agency and investigated by an independent panel appointed by the UN. The panel closed several cases amid a notable lack of evidence.
(PC, Anadolu)
Be the first to comment