Israel plans to turn UNRWA’s Jerusalem office into housing units. UN says it hasn’t been notified

The relationship between Israel and UNRWA, the U.N. Palestinian-only aid and social-services agency, soured in the wake of revelations that staff were involved in October 7

Published Oct 12, 2024  •  2 minute read

An Israeli protester holds an Israeli flag and a sign while standing with others gathering outside the West Bank field office of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Jerusalem on March 20, 2024 during a demonstration calling for the cessation of its operations. Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images

(Oct. 11, 2024 / JNS) — Although the Israel Land Authority, a governmental body, announced on Thursday that it plans to turn the U.N. Relief and Works Agency field office in Jerusalem’s Ma’alot Dafna neighbourhood into a complex with 1,440 housing units, the United Nations told JNS that UNRWA has received no official notification from the Jewish state about its facility being confiscated.

The Israeli governmental body informed UNRWA in May that it had to vacate the premises within 30 days and pay the Jewish state rent, for the years it used the facility, of about US$7 million.

But Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, told JNS during a press briefing on Thursday that the global body hasn’t heard directly from the Israel Land Authority.

“We’ve only seen through the media,” Haq told JNS.

UNRWA has “not received any formal notification” of the plan to turn the field office into a housing complex nor of imminent confiscation or eviction, according to Haq. The U.N. spokesman reiterated the general U.N. position that “Israel is under an obligation to honor and respect” the inviolability of U.N. premises under international law.

“That inviolability is not subject to any qualification, limitation or exceptions,” Haq told JNS.

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The relationship between Israel and UNRWA, the U.N. Palestinian-only aid and social-services agency, soured dramatically in the wake of revelations that some UNRWA staffers were involved in Hamas’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel. UNRWA later confirmed the accusations in part, although Israeli authorities say that UNRWA is not thoroughly investigating all of the evidence that the Jewish state has provided.

Israel accuses UNRWA of systemic ties to Hamas. Earlier this month, an UNRWA school principal and head of the teacher’s union in Lebanon was killed in an Israeli airstrike. Shortly thereafter, Hamas recognized the man — Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin — as its commander in Lebanon.

Israel and pro-Israel nonprofit groups have provided UNRWA with extensive documentation about Sherif’s ties to Hamas and support of terror. UNRWA suspended him in March but did not fire him while it carried out an investigation. It has provided no update on that probe.

Several pieces of legislation making their way through the Knesset would, if passed, shut down UNRWA’s activities in Jerusalem; declare the agency a terror organization; and strip its staff of diplomatic privileges.

Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA commissioner-general, said that if the legislation passes, it would be a concession that “the post-World War II-based international order is at an end.”

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