Adnan Al-Husseini: Israel turned its back on international institutions, forgetting that it gained its legitimacy from these institutions.

Hatim Abdel Qader: Israeli violations against UNRWA are a blatant attempt to shed international responsibility for the refugee issue

Sami Mshasha: UNRWA does not have any real plan to confront the plot to liquidate it, but rather has begun to adapt to international pressures

Ratiba al-Natsheh: The right-wing government has launched an open war on the fundamental and fateful issues of the Palestinian people, including the refugee issue.

Ziad Al-Hamouri: There is an intensive campaign to try to end the refugee issue.. and "UNRWA" is the main symbol of Palestinian refugees

Fadel Tahboub: The Authority is required to assume its responsibilities to ensure the continuation of the educational process and not allow the occupation to impose a new reality

Three weeks after the Israeli occupation authorities’ decision to ban the work of the International Relief Agency (UNRWA) in areas under Israeli “sovereignty” came into effect, occupation police forces stormed a number of UNRWA schools in Jerusalem last Tuesday and ordered their closure. This measure affected 250 children in 3 schools in the city, and 350 students in the Qalandia Training Center.

“Israeli forces and Jerusalem Municipality staff stormed UNRWA’s Qalandia Training Centre and ordered its immediate evacuation,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement on the X platform, describing the incident as a denial of the right of children and youth in East Jerusalem to education in UNRWA schools.

Lazzarini considered what happened to be a "violation of the fundamental right to education, as well as a violation of the privileges and immunities of the United Nations," stressing the need to preserve the right of children to access education, and to protect and respect United Nations facilities at all times and in all places.

Politicians, writers and analysts who spoke to “I” considered that the right-wing government in Israel has embarked on an open war on all the essential and fateful issues of the Palestinian people, including the refugee issue, and that these Israeli violations against “UNRWA” are a blatant attempt to drop international responsibility for the refugee issue.

One analyst pointed out that UNRWA does not have any real plan to confront the plot to liquidate it, but rather has begun to adapt to international pressures, while another called on the Palestinian Authority to assume its responsibilities to ensure the continuation of the educational process and not allow the occupation to impose a new reality.

Dire consequences of the occupation's decision to close UNRWA

Engineer Adnan Al-Husseini, member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and head of the Jerusalem Department, said that the Israeli occupation authorities are defying the world and ignoring all international laws and conventions.

He added: "At a time when Israel has turned its back on international institutions, it has forgotten that it gained its legitimacy from these institutions."

Al-Husseini explained that the unjust Israeli decision to close the offices of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the occupied Palestinian territories comes in the context of the aggressive war waged by the occupying state against the Arab Palestinian people, and the quest to pass suspicious plans to eliminate them and liquidate their just cause, at the forefront of which is the refugee issue.

Al-Husseini warned of the dire consequences of the decision of the occupying state, which he considered an insult and contempt for the international community, its institutions and decisions, and the disasters expected to occur as a result of obstructing and stopping the efforts and services provided by UNRWA, especially humanitarian aid, in light of what the Israeli machine of destruction leaves behind in its aggression on the occupied Palestinian territories in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Al-Husseini called on the international community to assume its responsibilities, deal with the occupying state as a racist state outside the law, work to strip it of its international legitimacy, and provide full support to UNRWA, in order to ensure the continuation of its services.

A flagrant violation of international law

For his part, Hatem Abdel Qader, Secretary-General of the Islamic Christian Authority for the Support of Jerusalem and the Holy Sites, and member of the Revolutionary Council of the Fatah Movement, condemned the Israeli occupation’s targeting of UNRWA schools and institutions in the city of Jerusalem as part of the incitement campaign launched by Israeli officials against UNRWA.

Abdul Qader added: "These violations against the agency are a blatant attempt to drop international responsibility for the Palestinian refugee issue, which threatens to liquidate the right of return and compensation stipulated in international resolutions.

"These violations constitute a flagrant violation of international law and a direct threat to the rights of Palestinian refugees," Abdel Qader said.

Abdul Qader called on the United Nations and the international community to assume their responsibilities in protecting UNRWA and ensuring its continued provision of vital services to the Palestinian people.

Lack of a clear and effective action plan to confront the ban on UNRWA

Sami Mshasha, a follower of UNRWA affairs and its former official spokesman, believes that the absence of a clear and effective plan of action to confront the ban on UNRWA’s work in Jerusalem and its expulsion from it constitutes a direct threat to the fate of Palestinian refugees in the city.

Mshasha explained that this absence includes the lack of specific instructions for the families of students in UNRWA schools, and hundreds of students at the prestigious Qalandia Institute who received evacuation notices, in addition to the intimidation of students in schools and the absence of any plan to protect the agency’s employees, whose job security is now threatened.

Mshasha added: "There is also a lack of any vision about the fate of poor families classified as "cases of extreme hardship", as well as the follow-up of patients, especially the elderly and those with chronic diseases, stressing that these issues cannot be addressed through hollow statements and declarations about the steadfastness of "UNRWA."

Mish'sha' criticized the absence of any realistic plan by UNRWA and the United Nations to confront the campaign targeting the agency, pointing out that this shortcoming was clearly evident during the last war, when UNRWA evacuated its headquarters and left the displaced and its employees to their fate in northern Gaza.

He also referred to the intensive attack that targeted UNRWA for more than a year, with the aim of expelling it from Jerusalem and reducing its role in Gaza after the war, without the agency taking any serious steps to protect its workers or ensure their job security.

In a related context, Mshasha questioned the usefulness of the UN Commissioner-General’s attendance at the Munich Security Conference, considering that his presence at such events reflects a dangerous shift in the role of UNRWA, as if the Palestinian refugee is now viewed as a security threat.

He also criticized his attendance at the meetings of the "International Alliance for a Two-State Solution," noting that his statements there deviate from UNRWA's mandate and link the fate of refugees to a political solution that does not guarantee the right of return, but rather seeks to create a distorted Palestinian entity.

Statements by the UN Commissioner-General

Mshasha explained that the Commissioner-General stated during the Munich conference that “the long-term goal is to enable Palestinian institutions to assume the basic services provided by UNRWA,” wondering who gave him the right to speak on behalf of the refugees and the mandate to change the agency’s clear and explicit mandate.

He also condemned his statement during the Cairo meeting about "gradually ending UNRWA's mandate," stressing that these statements are in line with plans to end the agency and turn it into a political tool that serves projects to liquidate the Palestinian cause.

At the end of his speech, Mshasha stressed that UNRWA does not have any real plan to confront the plot aimed at liquidating it, but rather has begun to adapt to international pressures, which makes it an indirect partner in implementing the policy of deportation and settlement.

He also pointed out the absence of a Palestinian national plan to confront this scheme, warning that the continuation of division and dispersion of positions will lead to the loss of Palestinian rights, most notably the right of return. He concluded his speech by calling for the development of a clear and specific plan of action that guarantees the protection of Palestinian refugees and the continuation of UNRWA's role in providing its services away from political calculations.

The only international witness to the refugee issue

In turn, political and community activist Ratiba Al-Natsheh said that UNRWA represents the only international witness to the issue of Palestinian refugees, and embodies dozens of international resolutions related to their rights.

She added: "It is no secret that the Palestinians' adherence to the refugee issue and their right to return to the lands from which they were displaced constituted an obsession for Israeli leaders, who considered it a national threat to the existence of their state, and even an implicit rejection by the Palestinians of the defeat of 1948 and the establishment of the State of Israel."

She pointed out that the previous Israeli government, during Trump's first term, sought to issue a decision that would limit the right of return to the original refugees who were displaced from their cities and villages in 1948, without this right being passed on by inheritance to their children who were born outside Palestine.

She added: "This government also worked to dry up UNRWA's resources and restrict it with American assistance, through a committee appointed by the United Nations under American leadership, to investigate the records of employees and refugees registered as beneficiaries of the agency's services in the Palestinian territories, and to set new standards for neutrality and rejection of "terrorism."

Lifting UNRWA's diplomatic immunity

Al-Natsheh stressed that the current government led by Netanyahu, which called itself the “decisive government,” has launched an open war on all the essential and fateful issues of the Palestinian people, including the refugee issue, fighting UNRWA, inciting against it, and drying up its resources.

Al-Natsheh considered that the majority vote in the Israeli Knesset to declare UNRWA an undesirable institution, lift its diplomatic immunity, and demand that it end its services before the end of January 2025, is a translation of the Israeli desire to end the refugee issue as one of the decisive factors to end the Palestinian issue and any international evidence of it. It also represents a clear challenge to international law and the United Nations institutions, which Israel has not respected any of its previous decisions.

“The decision of the Prime Minister of the occupation government, in the last cabinet meeting a few days ago, to implement the decision related to banning UNRWA “decisively and without hesitation or delay,” is further evidence that ending the refugee issue and declaring war on this international institution constitutes a top priority, no less important than imposing control over the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It is also a clear indication that Israel has received a green light from the White House to move forward on the issues of resolving the conflict in the Middle East, including the Palestinian issue at all levels,” she added.

Storming UNRWA educational institutions

Al-Natsheh pointed out that the educational institutions affiliated with UNRWA were stormed, their employees were interrogated, and orders were given to evacuate them, in implementation of the Prime Minister’s decision, starting with the education sector, as it is one of the arms of the war that the occupation municipality has been waging for many years in an attempt to completely control education in Jerusalem.

She added: This was followed by statements by the Israeli Minister of Health regarding ending cooperation in the health field with UNRWA and stopping its health services, which was translated in the field by removing the sign from the Indian Corner Clinic in the Old City, in preparation for ending its services or incorporating it into the Israeli health system.

She stressed that the threat to seize UNRWA properties in Jerusalem existed even before the Knesset voted to ban UNRWA. She said that the Israeli authorities informed UNRWA schools in the Shuafat camp of their intention to seize their buildings, and had previously taken their measurements. They also issued a decision to evacuate UNRWA headquarters in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, on the pretext that it was built on land belonging to the Israel Land Authority, and planned to build 1,440 settlement units on it, in addition to imposing heavy taxes on the organization in an attempt to dry up its financial resources.

Al-Natsheh concluded by saying: “Despite the Israeli plans and the weak international and UN response so far to these violations and the blatant challenge to international law, the will of the Palestinian people, and more than 150,000 Jerusalemites who benefit from the agency’s educational and health services, still constitutes an obstacle to achieving the plan to end UNRWA’s services, and also provides a window of time for international action to save the refugee issue.”

The occupation is moving towards closing most of the agency's institutions

For his part, the Director of the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights, Ziad Hamouri, said that the occupation authorities continue their escalation against the institutions of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), as part of a plan targeting the issue of Palestinian refugees.

He said: "What happened a few days ago in Jerusalem is that a delegation from the Israeli Ministry of Education visited the schools in an attempt to find out the numbers of male and female students, but some directors refused to cooperate with them, while others referred them to the agency's general administration."

He confirmed that one of the school principals decided, in order to ensure the safety of the students, to allow them to leave, without this being an official closure decision. As for the issue of schools in general, it has been postponed until the summer, and no steps will be taken before the end of the school year.

Al-Hamouri pointed out that the occupation is moving towards closing most of the agency’s institutions, as its forces stormed the agency’s clinic in Bab al-Zahra and changed its name as part of a policy aimed at obliterating the Palestinian identity in the city.

Attacks on refugee camps in the West Bank

In a related context, Al-Hamouri stressed that the attacks on refugee camps in the West Bank, such as Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarm, come within a comprehensive plan aimed at liquidating the refugee issue and undermining the existence of UNRWA.

He explained that the occupation has already displaced 90% of the residents of Tulkarm camp, and 70% of the residents of Jenin camp, without any solutions on the horizon to house them.

He stressed that there is an intensive campaign to try to end the refugee issue, and the agency is the main symbol of Palestinian refugees. Therefore, these steps represent an attempt to eliminate this symbol, which reflects a systematic policy that has no limits.

Al-Hamouri added: "The current occupation government is pursuing racist and extremist policies targeting education, health, and vital facilities, in the absence of an effective Arab or Palestinian plan to confront these plans."

Al-Hamouri warned that these Israeli measures represent a real danger to the future of Palestinian refugees, calling for urgent action to stop the Israeli escalation and protect UNRWA institutions, which are a symbol of the Palestinian refugee issue.

Attack on UNRWA is targeting the United Nations

In turn, political analyst Fadel Tahboub said that the Israeli attacks on the institutions of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) do not only target the Palestinians, but also represent an attack on the United Nations, considering that UNRWA is an international institution.

Tahboub pointed out that Israel is acting as if it is above the law, exploiting American support, which reflects an American-Israeli attempt to impose complete control over the West Bank.

He explained that UNRWA supervises about a third of school students in Jerusalem, and that ending its role would require the Palestinian National Authority or any Arab party to assume responsibility for managing these schools and bear their operating costs, including teachers’ salaries and students’ educational needs.

He added: "Leaving students without schools is unacceptable," stressing that the National Authority is required to assume its responsibilities to ensure the continuation of the educational process and not allow the occupation to impose a new reality.

Tahboub also pointed out that Israel is working to prevent funding for UNRWA and prevent its employees from performing their work, which is a clear challenge to the international position, as Israel seeks to systematically end the agency’s existence.

Tahboub concluded by stressing the need to assume national responsibility for managing the Agency’s schools and health institutions, to ensure the continuation of the basic services needed by the Palestinian people.