Israel Raids UN Relief Headquarters in East Jerusalem
HAVANA TIMES– Israeli police forcibly entered the headquarters of UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees] in East Jerusalem on Monday, August 8th, after surrounding the complex with motorcycles, trucks, and cranes. The agency termed the assault, “a new violation of international law.”
According to UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, Israeli forces, accompanied by municipal officials, “stormed the agency’s compound, cut off all communications, confiscated furniture and computer equipment, and replaced the blue UN flag with an Israeli flag.
The brutal raid has great symbolic weight for Palestinians and adds to the chain of attacks on the agency, which Israel now considers persona non grata.
“This latest action constitutes a flagrant disregard of Israel’s obligation as a UN member state, to protect and respect the inviolability of United Nations facilities,” Lazzarini wrote on social media. “Allowing this represents a new challenge to international law and sets a dangerous precedent anywhere else in the world where the UN is present,” he added.
UNRWA provides health, education, and other services to some six million Palestinian refugees in five locations in the Middle East, including the occupied Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank. The agency has been the target of constant harassment since Israel began its relentless assault on Gaza on October 7, 2023.
During the two years of that conflict, at least 70,000 Gazans perished; the Gaza Strip has been devastated by bombing. A cease fire declared on October21, 2025 has formally ended the conflict—although near-constant violations continue.
At the same time, an escalation of armed actions by the Israeli military and settlers in the West Bank has also caused hundreds of deaths there.
Throughout the war, Israel has accused UNRWA of being infiltrated by Hamas, claiming the militant group used its facilities and benefited from its aid programs, although without presenting any further evidence. United Nations officials have denied these accusations.
However, since 2021, UNRWA has faced increasingly grave hurdles to continuing their work, both in Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territories. UNRWA highlights that sustained Israeli harassment has included hostile demonstrations, arson attacks in 2024, school closures, large-scale disinformation campaigns against the agency, and repeated acts of intimidation.
Regarding Monday’s operation, Israeli police said in a statement that they had entered the headquarters for “a debt collection procedure,” led by the Jerusalem municipal government. They provided no further details.
Lazzarini noted that the East Jerusalem complex has been empty since the beginning of the year, “after the Israeli parliament passed anti-UNRWA legislation.”
In October 2024, the Knesset (Israeli parliament) passed two laws: one prohibiting the Agency’s activities throughout Israel, including occupied East Jerusalem, which Israel took over in 1967; and the other prohibiting any Israeli official from cooperating with the agency’s staff.
“However, regardless of the measures taken at the national level, the complex retains its status as a UN facility, immune from any interference,” Lazzarini stressed.
Israel is a party to the UN Convention on Privileges and Immunities, which grants the Organization’s facilities “inviolability” status, exempting them from searches or seizures and protecting their property from any legal proceedings. The International Court of Justice has reiterated Israel’s obligation to cooperate with UNRWA.
Monday’s raid comes just three days after the UN General Assembly renewed UNRWA’s mandate to operate for another three years.
First published in Spanish by IPS and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.