In a move that has escalated long-running tensions over Palestinian refugee services in occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli military and security forces seized the final remaining operational facility run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the city on Tuesday. The operation, personally led by controversial National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, targeted the Qalandiya Vocational Training Institute, a 70-year-old educational campus sitting on 8.8 hectares of land in Kafr Aqab, a Palestinian-majority area north of Jerusalem’s central urban core.
After entering the campus, Israeli forces evacuated the entire site, briefly detained and questioned roughly 40 institute employees before issuing orders barring them from ever returning to the property. For more than seven decades, the center has delivered free vocational training to hundreds of Palestinian refugee teens annually, equipping young people with marketable skills across 16 different trade specializations. Following the completion of the takeover, Israeli personnel raised the Israeli flag in the institute’s central courtyard.
Ben Gvir publicly celebrated the seizure in a social media video filmed from the office of the former UNRWA institute director, declaring “On my watch there is no UNRwa, there is no management, they will not be here.” Shortly after the operation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the raid had been conducted on his direct orders.
UNRWA issued an immediate formal condemnation of the incursion, emphasizing that armed Israeli personnel entered a designated United Nations facility without any prior authorization or consent from the global body. The agency noted that the Qalandiya Training Center is a UN property protected by formal privileges and immunities guaranteed under international law, and that its status as an inviolable UN site must be fully respected by all parties.
The seizure unfolded concurrent with a wider Israeli military assault on the adjacent Qalandiya refugee camp. Prior to entering the institute, forces opened fire with live ammunition and deployed tear gas against local Palestinians who had gathered to protest the impending operation. A 12-year-old Palestinian boy was shot and wounded during the clashes, local sources confirmed.
Palestinian officials say the takeover of the last UNRWA facility in East Jerusalem is the culmination of years of targeted incitement by the Israeli government against the agency. In 2024, Israel’s parliament passed a national law banning UNRWA from operating across Israeli-controlled territory, a measure introduced following unproven allegations that a small number of agency employees participated in the October 7, 2023 cross-border attack from Gaza. The Israeli government began full enforcement of the ban in 2025, extending it to occupied East Jerusalem, which Israel unilaterally annexed in 1980 in a move that has never been recognized by the international community and violates core international law principles.
Since enforcement of the ban began, Israeli authorities have shut down six UNRWA-run schools, three UNRWA-operated health clinics, and the agency’s former East Jerusalem headquarters in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The Qalandiya Vocational Training Institute was the last surviving UNRWA facility still operating in the city.
Originally founded in 1952 on land donated by the Jordanian government, the Qalandiya institute was one of the first permanent UNRWA facilities established in East Jerusalem after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Its location carries unique strategic and political significance: while Kafr Aqab falls within the municipal boundaries Israel unilaterally set for Jerusalem, the area is physically cut off from the rest of the city by the Israeli separation barrier and Qalandiya checkpoint. More than 150,000 Palestinians reside in the Kafr Aqab and surrounding area, most of whom have relied on UNRWA for critical services including education, healthcare, and refugee support for generations.
Marouf al-Rifai, an adviser to the Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem governorate, warned that the targeting of UNRWA carries implications far beyond the agency itself. “This is a very dangerous indication that institutions with international and UN immunity are being targeted,” al-Rifai told Middle East Eye, adding that Israeli authorities have expanded their crackdown to dozens of other international organizations operating in East Jerusalem in recent months. He reported that 36 international and non-governmental organizations have already been shut down, had their operating licenses revoked, or been ordered to relocate their offices from Jerusalem to Ramallah.
According to al-Rifai, Israeli plans call for converting seized facilities like the Qalandiya institute into Israeli public institutions that teach the Israeli national curriculum, a move widely seen as an effort to advance Israeli sovereignty claims over occupied East Jerusalem in densely populated Palestinian areas. “These projects will be built in the heart of a densely populated Palestinian area, as the area surrounding the institute is home to more than 150,000 Palestinians,” he said.
Local Palestinian leaders framed the raid as a deliberate show of force intended to intimidate Palestinian residents of the area. Mohammed Saeed, media director for the Qalandiya camp Popular Committee for Services, said the raid underscores Israel’s broader efforts to displace Palestinian presence and eliminate UN-backed refugee support in the city. “The message that the camp’s residents want to convey after the raid is their steadfastness on the land, and we call on the international community to take a clearer stance against Israeli actions,” he said.