U.N. Palestinian Aid Agency Says Israeli Police ‘Forcibly Entered’ Compound In Jerusalem

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police forced their way into the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees compound in East Jerusalem early Monday, escalating a campaign against an organization that has been banned from entering. operating in Israeli territory.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said in a statement that “a large number” of Israeli forces, including police on motorcycles, trucks and forklifts, entered the compound in the Palestinian Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and cut off communication with the compound.

“The unauthorized entry by Israeli security forces using force is an unacceptable violation of UNRWA’s privileges and immunities as a UN agency,” the agency said.

Photos taken by an Associated Press photographer show police cars on the street and an Israeli flag on the roof of the compound. Photos provided by UNRWA staff show a group of Israeli police officers inside the compound.

Police said in a statement that they had entered a “debt collection procedure” led by the Jerusalem municipal government but did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The raid was the latest act in Israel’s campaign against the organization, which provides aid and services to approximately 2.5 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as 3 million refugees in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.

The agency was created to assist approximately 700,000 Palestinians who have fled or been expelled from what is now Israel. 1948 war surrounding Israel’s founding. UNRWA supporters say Israel hopes to eliminate the Palestinian refugee problem by disbanding the agency. Israel says refugees should be resettled permanently outside its borders.

For more than a year of the Israel-Hamas war, which began on October 7, 2023, UNRWA was the main lifeline for Gaza’s population, which is largely dependent on aid due to a humanitarian crisis caused by heavy Israeli bombardment and restrictions on the entry of goods.

Throughout the war, Israel claimed that the organization was infiltrated by Hamas, while the UN denied these allegations. After months of escalating attacks Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and their far-right allies Israel officially banned In January, it gave up operating on its own territory.

The United States, previously UNRWA’s largest donor, stopped funding the agency in early 2024.

UNRWA has since struggled to continue its work in Gaza; Other UN agencies, such as WFP and UNICEF, have stepped in to help make up for the gap, which UNRWA says is unfillable.

“If you throw UNRWA out, what other agency can fill the gap?” Tamara Alrifai, UNRWA’s director of external relations and communications, said on the sidelines of the meeting: Doha Forum on Saturday.

He added that the agency was excluded from US-led negotiations on Phase 2 of the ceasefire.

UNRWA closed its Jerusalem campus in May after far-right protesters, including at least one member of the Israeli Parliament, breached the building’s gates in front of police. Israel’s far right has pushed to turn the compound into a settlement, and the country’s housing minister said last year that he had instructed the ministry to “examine how the area could be returned to the state of Israel and used for housing.”

Josef Federman in Doha, Qatar, contributed to this report.