The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) continues to provide help to “Palestinian refugees” that no other group of refugees in the world receives. Among all the hundreds of millions of refugees created since World War II, only the so-called “Palestinians” have a UN Agency devoted solely to their care and feeding. All the other refugee groups are collectively looked after by a single UN Agency, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Another unusual feature of UNRWA is that it keeps on its list of refugees not just the real refugees who left Mandatory Palestine and then Israel, just before, during and after the 1948 war, of whom less than 20,000 are still alive, but all of those refugees’ children, grandchildren, and so on, without end. So their numbers keep increasing, and UNRWA now provides aid to 5.9 million “registered Palestine refugees.” And all of those 5.9 million descendants of refugees are provided with UNRWA benefits. For all other refugees, that status is not passed on. No one has yet satisfactorily explained why the Palestinian “refugees” should enjoy this unique treatment.
The Israelis discovered in Gaza lists of Hamas members, and found that many dozens of them were staff members of UNRWA. What’s more, they discovered that a number of UNRWA staffers had taken part in the atrocities carried out on October 7, 2023. Hamas personnel have hidden themselves, and stored their weapons, in UNRWA-run schools, hospitals, and mosques across Gaza, with no objection from the UN agency. In February 2024, the IDF discovered a major Hamas intelligence hub located 18 meters directly beneath the main UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City. The underground complex served as a data center and command post, featuring computer servers and industrial batteries that the UN agency’s electrical grid powered. UNRWA tried initially to claim that it had no idea its headquarters was on top of a Hamas command-and-control center, but that is nonsense. After all, it would have realized that UNRWA’s electrical grid was providing power to another entity nearby, and there was no such entity on the surface, but there was a steady hum from underground. What else could it be other than a Hamas headquarters? Of course, UNRWA must have known all along that its headquarters in Gaza was being used to hide a key Hamas command center.
And all that explains the pleasure the Israelis must have taken by not only razing the UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem to the ground, but now replacing it with a Defense Ministry complex.
More on the building the Israelis are constructing on the former UNRWA site can be found here: “Def. Min. complex to be built on site of fmr. UNRWA Jerusalem headquarters, Katz says,” by Aaron Glick, Jerusalem Post, May 17, 2026:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved a proposal to establish a Defense Ministry complex on the site of the demolished UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) complex in Jerusalem, Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Sunday in a post on X/Twitter.
According to Katz, the new Ammunition Hill complex will include an IDF recruitment office, an IDF museum, and an office for the Defense Minister.
“Today, on Jerusalem Day, we liberated a new area in Jerusalem when the government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved my proposal to establish a Defense Ministry complex… in place of the demolished UNRWA complex,” said Katz.
“We outlawed this terrorist-supporting UN organization [UNRWA] and took the area, and now on its ruins we are building and strengthening Jerusalem – the eternal capital of the Jewish people,” continued Katz….
In addition, numerous tunnels and other terrorist infrastructures were found under UNRWA buildings in Gaza….
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres criticized the Jerusalem building’s demolition, describing Israel’s actions against UNRWA as “wholly unacceptable.”
Guterres added that Israel’s actions were against international law, according to Deputy UN Spokesperson Farhan Haq.
What can Guterres be thinking? Israel is a sovereign state; UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem was built on land that the League of Nations always intended to become part of a future Jewish state, and it was its victory in the Six-Day War that finally allowed Israel to exercise its pre-existing right to that land. What was “against international law” about that? Guterres keeps hoping we will ignore the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, and the territory covered by it, but not all of us are quite so willing to go along.
How satisfying it must be for Israelis to have seen Hamas’ collaborator, UNRWA, lose its Jerusalem headquarters on Ammunition Hill, and even more satisfying to learn that it is now to be replaced with a Defense Ministry complex.
Peacelover says
‘Mandatory Palestine’….was reading about that on wiki(yeah,I know,can’t always trust it/them) and yeah,the Romans really started it(way back) but it seems like the British had a lot to do with ‘really messing things up’. Am I wrong?
Peacelover says
Of course,the Arabs then took advantage.
Hugh Fitzgerald says
The British “messed things up” by faiilng to follow through on what , as Mandatary (note the spelling), as holder of the Mandate for Palestine), they were obligated to do. They lopped off all of eastern Palestine that was originally supposed to be included in the territory of the Mandate, closing it to Jewish immigration, and instead created from it the Emirate of Transjordan, which eventually became the Arab Kingdom of Jordan. The British administration in Mandatory Palestine consisted of people who were unsympathetic to the Zionists and did not, as they were required to do under Article 6 of the Mandate, “either “facilitate Jewish immigration” or “encourage close Jewish settlement on the land.” During the anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem in the 1920s, when Zev Jabotinsky tried to organize Jewish self-defense groups, the British arrested not the Arabs but Jabotinsky who, after world-wide protests, was released. When there were pogroms, as in Hebron in 1929, the British did not protect the Jews. During the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, the British army did try to repel the Arabs, not in order to protect Jews but to protect themselves from Arab marauders. The one British officer who was sympathetic to the Jews, and did help them organize “night squads” to take the fight t to the Arabs, was that remarkable man,Captain Orde Wingate. His ardent Zionism – he was not Jewish — led to his being sent out of Palestine. He later fought in Ethiopia and then in Burma against the Japanese. It was in Burma that he died in a plane crash with American servicemen; their remains were buried together in a single grave in Arlington National Cemetery.
the British government under Ramsey Macdonald passed the White Paper of 1939, restricting Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine to 15,000 a year for five years, after whcih any Jewish immigation was subject to an Arab veto. Churchiill thundered against this White Paper, but to no avail. Hundreds of thousands of Jews might have made in to safety in Palestine had this White Paper not been adopted.
During World War II, the British blocked ships loaded with desperate Jews fleeing from Europe from landing in Palestine. Many of those refugees gave up trying. After World War IIi the British turned back ships loaded with Jews from D.P. camps, who had servived the concentration camps, and sent them back to Europe — and in one famous case, back to Germany.
Fiinally, in 1948, the British put an embargo on weapons for the Jews of Palestine. At the same time, the British were sending weapons to Egypt, Iraq, and especially, Jordan. The Arab Legion in Jordan, was armed, trained, and led by British officers — its head was John Bagot Glubb, known as “Glubb Pasha” Those ships had to return to Europe, unloading their human cargo there, where they were left to be murdered by the Nazis.
There is much more one could add about the perfidy of the British toward the Jews of Palestine. But i hope that for now that will do.
Wellington says
Fine summary.
ploome says
and
“In 1950, Jordan annexed the territories it had captured in the 1948 war–-eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank. The April 24th resolution declared “its support for complete unity between the two sides of the Jordan and their union into one State, which is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, at whose head reigns King Abdullah Ibn al Husain…”
Judea and Samaria, commonly know as “West Bank” is part of Mandate. After the Ottomans abandoned sovereignty over their territory to the Allied victors, the Jordanians seized control andIn 1950, Jordan annexed the territories it had captured in the 1948 war–-eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank.
While Great Britain and Pakistan were the only countries that recognized Jordan’s annexation – all other nations, including the Arab states, rejected it — Great Britain recognized only the annexation of the West Bank. It never recognized either Jordan or Israel’s sovereignty over any sector of Jerusalem, viewing both Jordan’s 1950 annexation and Israel’s annexation of west Jerusalem as illegal.”
Israel is the only country in the region, previously administered by UK, which has never had an official visit.
ploome says
https://www.sixdaywar.org/jerusalem/1948-1967-jordanian-occupation-of-eastern-jerusalem/
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Oopa. I Inadvertently misplaced a sentence in the penultimate paragraph, the one that begins “Those ships had to…” Sorry. Just cross out that sentence. Sorry.
Peacelover says
Thank you for All that Hugh Fitzgerald and yeah,sorry for my misreading of the word so thanks for helping me be aware.
gravenimage says
+1
ploome says
why did the Balfour Declaration come about?
“Chaim Weizmann’s Acetone Discovery was Key to British WWI Effort-
https://weizmann-usa.org/blog/chaim-weizmann-s-acetone-discovery-was-key-to-british-wwi-effort/
When asked by UK Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour what he wished to receive in return for his contribution to the war effort, Dr. Weizmann boldly replied, “There is only one thing I want: a national home for my people.” Duly impressed, Lord Balfour issued the famous Balfour Declaration of 1917 committing the British government to the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in what was then Ottoman ruled Palestine. ”
he may have saved UK
Chaim Azriel Weizmann was an Israeli statesman, biochemist, and Zionist leader who served as president of the Zionist Organization and later as the first president of Israel.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Good move. No piece of Israeli real estate should be available to UNRWA. Now that Gaza is lost, if UNRWA has to have an office, let it be somewhere like Ramallah or Tulkarm or Qalqilya, and that too in areas that are “Palestinian”, and not Israeli settlements
P.S. I checked Wiki for the spellings of the above cities, and Wikipedia is now in full fantasy mode. Previously, they simply called this fictional state “State of Palestine”: now, “Palestine” is the entry one gets, and Wiki pretends that it’s a real country, and talks about its Governorates, its geography and so on. What’s worse: Wiki pretends that al Quds is a thing, and lists the Quds governorate, as if it is a thing. Cybersecurity Blackhats could and should hone their skills attacking Wikipedia
Peacelover says
+
gravenimage says
IDF Office Replaces Former UNRWA Headquarters in Jerusalem
…………………………………………..
Good to hear. A wise move.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Yeah! The real question is why any Israeli government allowed them to have an office in Jerusalem in the first place!