Nearly two years after Israel passed legislation barring the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA from operating in the country, authorities on Tuesday began clearing the agency’s compound in the Kafr Aqab neighborhood of Jerusalem.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir personally joined the operation and later published a video from inside the compound, drawing renewed international criticism. But before he arrived, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had asked him not to go.
At the end of Monday night’s Security Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu summoned Ben-Gvir to his office, where Defense Minister Israel Katz and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar were also present. The subject was the planned evacuation of the UNRWA facility.
There are two accounts of what happened in the room. According to Ben-Gvir’s associates, Netanyahu and Sa’ar asked him to postpone the evacuation itself, arguing that the timing was poor and that the move would trigger severe international condemnation and diplomatic damage.
Political officials gave a different account, saying there was no dispute over the evacuation, which had already been approved and planned for weeks. The concern, they said, was whether Ben-Gvir should personally arrive with the security forces, potentially turning a planned enforcement action into a much larger diplomatic confrontation.
Once it became clear that Ben-Gvir would not back down, Netanyahu asked him at least to keep a low profile.
“I am the national security minister. The law bans UNRWA. I removed them from Ma’alot Dafna and I am removing them from Kafr Aqab,” Ben-Gvir told Netanyahu, according to his associates. “There is law in Israel, and I have no intention of ignoring it.”
He added: “If we don’t remove them, they will attack you from every direction, including the opposition, and rightly so. We have to remove them, and I’m going all the way. They condemned us before and they will condemn us afterward.”
Ben-Gvir at the compound
Ben-Gvir also argued that his confrontational approach was more effective than that of other government ministers. “My method works better than yours,” he reportedly said.
He ultimately arrived at the compound with security forces and a Channel 14 television crew. Lawmaker Zvi Sukkot later drew additional attention when he smashed a monument honoring Palestinians with a hammer.
In a video posted from the site, Ben-Gvir appeared wearing a vest belonging to the Magen unit.
“I am sitting in what used to be the UNRWA director’s office,” he said. “He sat here and managed this place, and thank God, on my watch there is no UNRWA, there is no management, they will not be here.”
Ben-Gvir listed the agencies involved in the operation, including police, the IDF, Border Police and the Israel Prison Service’s Masada unit.
“Everyone joined together for a major operation. UNRWA out,” he said. “There will be a school for children here. Anyone who supports terrorism should be expelled in disgrace. That is how it works in the State of Israel.”
Netanyahu later issued his own statement, emphasizing that the operation had been carried out under his direction.
“In accordance with my instruction and following the law we passed, the evacuation of the UNRWA compound in Kafr Aqab in Jerusalem began today,” Netanyahu said. “The State of Israel will not allow an organization whose employees were involved in terrorism and the October 7 massacre to operate on its territory and will act against it with all available means.”
UN condemns operation
As with previous Israeli measures against UNRWA, the operation drew sharp criticism from the United Nations.
“I strongly condemn the unauthorized entry and unlawful seizure by Israeli authorities of a United Nations facility operated by UNRWA in occupied East Jerusalem,” said Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov, acting UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process.
Alakbarov said the Qalandiya Training Center was a UN facility and therefore protected from interference. He cited a recent advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice, which he said found that enforcement, administrative, judicial or legislative measures targeting UN premises, property or assets are prohibited under the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations.
He also warned that the move would affect Palestinians who receive services from UNRWA, saying the seizure of the training center would immediately deprive 340 young Palestinian refugees from the West Bank of access to education and could affect thousands more in the coming years.
UNRWA center near Qalandiya
(Photo: AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Alakbarov called on Israel to withdraw from the facility, restore its immunity and refrain from further action involving UN property.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry rejected that characterization and said the Jerusalem Municipality had begun renovation work on a new educational and community complex in Kafr Aqab for thousands of the neighborhood’s Arab residents.
The ministry said the municipality is investing more than 40 million shekels in the project, including a new municipal high school for boys expected to open in September. In the coming years, it said, the complex is also expected to include additional schools, a mosque, sports facilities and health services.
According to the ministry, the land has been owned by the Jewish National Fund since 1937 and was allocated to the Jerusalem Municipality for the project. It said UNRWA had no ownership rights to the site but had fenced it off for decades, preventing local residents from using it for badly needed public services.
“UNRWA’s activity in Israel was prohibited by law following evidence of the involvement of its employees in the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks and its inseparable ties with Hamas,” the Foreign Ministry said.
“The conclusion is simple: while UNRWA plays politics, the Jerusalem Municipality is improving the daily lives of all its residents, Jews and Arabs alike.”