In response to the evidence of many dozens of UNRWA staff also being terrorists belonging to Hamas, with some of them even having taken part in the atrocities carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023, Israel passed a law in 2024 preventing UNRWA from operating in its territory. It’s taken two years, but now the Israelis have finally expelled UNRWA from the last building it had been occupying in East Jerusalem. More on this takeover can be found here: “Jerusalem Municipality disputes UNRWA claim of Shuafat facility takeover,” by Danielle Greyman-Kennard, Jerusalem Post, August 17, 2026:
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency accused Israel of taking over the agency’s buildings in the Shuafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem in a statement published on Thursday.
UNRWA’s West Bank director Roland Friedrich said that “personnel associated with the Jerusalem Municipality have in recent days entered UNRWA facilities without authorization, including the school compound, health center, and community services office.”
It was alleged that the personnel forcibly entered the premises by breaking locks, and that contractors working on behalf of the municipality had begun carrying out work at the sites, in what the agency alleged was a violation of international law.
What “international law” was that? UNRWA didn’t own the building. UNRWA had not even legally rented it. The agency had long ago taken control of the privately-owned property in the Shuafat refugee camp, and failed to pay any rent. UNRWA was simply a squatter on the property. It was some time before the Israelis realized this, and when they did, they acted, by agreeing to throw out the squatters and instead to turn the building over to the Jerusalem Municipal Authority, that will now rent the building, which will be dedicated to furthering the education of people in the neighborhood. This means the Arab children living in the Shuafat refugee camp, who will have a chance at obtaining a real education, instead of the indoctrination in antisemitic hate that the UNRWA schools provide.
We know what the “three schools” that UNRWA ran in the building taught — virulent antisemitism fills all the UNRWA textbooks, the class syllabi, and the minds of its teachers. Now real education, emptied of antisemitic messaging, can take place in the building. And the owner of the property — who is almost certain to be one or more Arabs — will be properly paid, instead of UNRWA swindling them, as it apparently believed itself entitled, as an agency of the UN, to be above the law, and for years occupied the building without paying rent.
Friedrich told The Post that, as a UN agency, UNRWA schools and health facilities in the Shuafat Camp are “protected by the privileges and immunities of the United Nations under international law” and that the “premises are inviolable and immune from any form of legal process or interference, in accordance with the terms of the Convention of Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations to which the State of Israel is a signatory.”…
This “immunity” Friedrich claims for UNRWA, placing it above the law, and apparently above even something as well understood as landlord-and-tenant law, is a figment of his imagination. The UN Agency is not above that law, though Roland Friedrich claims otherwise.
Whom do you believe? Is it Israel, and the owner of the property, who both maintain that UNRWA never paid that owner rent? Or is it UNRWA, that has been mired in scandal after scandal, of which members of its staff turning out to be Hamas terrorists is only the latest?
He [UNRWA’s Roland Friedrich]added that over the years, UNRWA had invested millions of dollars provided by international donors into the construction, maintenance, and development of three schools and the health center. Israel’s closure of the sites, he said, meant 550 Palestinian children had been deprived of education and 20,000 patients had their access to health services restricted.
How does Friedrich know that Arab children will be “deprived of education” when the Jerusalem Municipality has explicitly said the building will be used for the “education” of the children in the neighborhood, which means the Arab children in the Shuafat refugee camp?
Now that building will be put to its proper use — education, not indoctrination — and the owner of the building, an Arab, will receive the payment he deserves. As for UNRWA, in 2024 Israel determined that the UNRWA staff were deeply involved with Hamas, and decided to ban UNRWA from operating anywhere in Israel. This building is the last one UNRWA still runs within Israel. Now that last outpost of UNRWA in the Jewish state has been shut down. And the Arab pupils who will study in the building, in a very different kind of school than those UNRWA runs, will be the greatest beneficiaries of this move.
somehistory says
Good for Israel. They once had to expel the philistines from the Land in ancient times. this is no different….send the evil-doers packing back to the place from whence they came.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Israel should impound all the documents they retrieve from that building, and use it to build a legal case against UNRWA, before doing 2 things:
⮞ Ban their personnel from operating anywhere in Judea, Samaria, Gaza or Israel proper
⮞ Demolish that building, before rebuilding it & restoring it to its rightful owners
Billy says
Israel must pass laws that PROHIBIT ANY PUBLIC FUNDING of Islam and its Muslim Organization due to Muslim discrimination, violence, segregation, and terrorism against Non-Muslims as taught in Islamic Law and in Islam’s Qur’an(Qur’an 9:5, 29, 41, 111; 49:15, etc.). Islam is the daily practice of Islamic Law, Sharia, which is created from the Qur’an, the Sira, the Hadith, the Tafsir, the Tarikh, and past Islamic Legal rulings. Furthermore, Muslim Islamization includes Muslim Criminal-Terrorist-Gang Organizations using Governments, Bureaucracies, Mosques, Muslim Homes, Muslim Schools, Halal Organizations, Islamic Centers, Sharia Courts, Muslim Non-Profits, etc. to fund, to educate, and to support Islam Law and Muslim Propaganda against all Non-Muslims(Qur’an 1:5; 3:51,1 01, 118; 5:3, 48; 8:60, 45:18; etc.).
Allah in Qur’an 9:28-29 commands, “O you who have believed, surely only the polytheists are unclean[dirty]… Engage in war with those who do not believe in Allah nor in the last day[Non-Muslims]. Nor forbid what Allah and his messenger forbid[via Islamic Law], nor believe in the religion of the truth[Islam] among those who have given the book[Jews and Christians] until they pay the jizyah[Extortion Payment] out of hand and they are subdued[disgraced].” Ultimately, Allah desires to fill hell with Non-Muslims(Qur’an 7:18; 11:119; 32:13; 98:6, etc.).
Rabbi Menashe Bovit says
Hugh Fitzgerald is nothing less than a tzaddik, I hesitate to even criticize his articles at all. However I respectfully offer this criticism, there are no “Refugee Camps” as these people Arab-Muslims, are no refugees. It’s debatable if even their great grandparents were refugees as any Arab-Muslim claiming to be a “refugee” was granted permanent refugee status for himself and any descendants into perpetuity. These nests of atavistic, violent, hateful Arab/Muslims are permanent cities with apartment buildings not tents and should be called cities not “camps”.