On Tuesday, Israeli forces began an eviction at a vocational training center operated by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, in a suburb of East Jerusalem.
This development comes after repeated warnings from UNRWA that Israeli authorities were threatening the Kalandia Training Center, which is located between the Kafr Aqab neighborhood in East Jerusalem and the Kalandia refugee camp.
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The center was founded in 1952 and provides vocational training to approximately 340 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank each year, according to UNRWA.
“In accordance with my directive and following the law we passed, the evacuation of the UNRWA compound in Kafr Aqab, Jerusalem, began today,” the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated in a press release.
The State of Israel “will not allow an organization, whose employees participated in terrorist acts and in the massacre of October 7, to operate within its territory and will take action against it using all available means,” the statement added.
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Israel has repeatedly accused UNRWA of providing cover for Hamas militants, claiming that some of its employees participated in the October 7, 2023, attack against Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.
Legislation severing ties with the agency and prohibiting it from operating within Israeli territory took effect in January 2025.
A series of investigations, including one led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, identified certain “issues related to neutrality” at UNRWA, but emphasized that Israel had not provided conclusive evidence for its core allegation.
Israel’s far-right Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, described the eviction operation as “a historic moment!” and posted a photo of the Israeli flag flying over the entrance to the training center, with the caption: “UNRWA is in our hands.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday that the Jerusalem municipality had begun “renovation work” on a “new educational and community complex in the Kafr Aqab neighborhood of Jerusalem, for the benefit of thousands of its Arab residents.”
“Despite the fact that it has no property rights to the plot, UNRWA has fenced off the land for decades,” it said in a statement, adding that “while UNRWA is engaged in politics, the Jerusalem Municipality is improving the daily lives of all its residents, both Jewish and Arab.”
The operation at the Kalandia Education Center took place one day after representatives from more than 25 diplomatic missions and international organizations visited the site.
In January, Israel began demolitions at UNRWA’s headquarters in East Jerusalem, in a move the agency described as an “unprecedented attack.” The complex has been without UNRWA staff since January 2025.
Source: CNA
