Israel shuts down UNRWA-affiliated schools in occupied East Jerusalem
Israel has shut down six schools run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees after moving to banish the organisation from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem early this year.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) said in a statement that Israeli police forcibly entered schools in the East Jerusalem neighbourhoods of Shuafat, Silwan, Sur Baher and Wadi al-Joz on Tuesday.
Officials from the Israeli Ministry of Education were also on hand. They issued orders to close the schools within 30 days.
'If we are forced to close, the consequences will be dire as the children will be deprived of their basic right to education, which will exacerbate their suffering and negatively affect their future,' said Abir Ismail, director of UNRWA's information office.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement that Israel's orders were a 'violation' of international law and the rules granting the UN operations protection from local jurisdictions.
'Some 800 boys and girls are directly impacted by these closure orders and are likely to miss finishing their school year,' Lazzarini wrote.Al Jazeera correspondent Nour Odeh said the closure of the UNRWA schools is 'extremely problematic' because the children would likely end up at Israeli institutions run by the Jerusalem Municipality.
She explained that the children admitted to Israeli schools would no longer be taught under the Palestinian curriculum.
'It is an Israeli-run curriculum that Palestinians say ignores and erases Palestinian identity,' Odeh said from Jordan's capital, Amman. Al Jazeera is reporting from Jordan because it has been banned from Israel and the West Bank.
UNRWA currently provides humanitarian assistance to about 750,000 Palestinians.
Ismail said the aid agency maintained its 'firm commitment to continue providing educational services to Palestine refugees in East Jerusalem, including the current academic year'.
However, Israel has accused UNRWA employees of involvement in the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, a charge vehemently denied by the UN.
Last year, in the aftermath of those allegations, the Israeli Knesset passed two bills prohibiting UNRWA from conducting activities within Israel's borders and making it illegal for Israeli officials to have any contact with UNRWA. Those measures have been in effect since January.
Odeh said Israel started implementing its ban by refusing to engage with UNRWA on the subject of aid to Gaza. But now, she explained, the country has moved on to targeting the agency's operations and headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem.
That move, she said, is likely to have a 'crippling effect' on UNRWA's operations 'in 19 other refugee camps' across the occupied West Bank, affecting 'Palestinians who rely on the agency, not just for education but also for health services, for psychosocial support'.
Odeh added that Israel has accelerated its implementation of the UNRWA ban since the start of its 'Iron Wall' military incursion in the West Bank in January.
The operation was launched just two days after a ceasefire took effect in Gaza.
It has involved the Israeli military bombing and bulldozing communities across the West Bank, razing entire residential areas in what critics fear is a bid to move towards full annexation.
More than 40,000 Palestinians have been uprooted from the Jenin and Tulkarem refugee camps as part of the military campaign.
UNRWA was established by the UN General Assembly in 1949 to provide assistance to Palestinians displaced from their land during the creation of Israel in 1948, an event known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or 'catastrophe'.
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