It comes after Israeli authorities “stormed and demolished” buildings within the compound final week, UNRWA Commissioner-Basic Philippe Lazzarini stated.
“Permitting this unprecedented destruction is the most recent assault on the UN within the ongoing try to dismantle the standing of Palestine Refugees within the Occupied Palestinian Territory and erase their historical past,” Mr. Lazzarini stated.
In a brief assertion, the senior UN official added that there have been “no limits to the defiance of the United Nations” and worldwide regulation within the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Final Tuesday’s transfer by Israeli authorities to ship bulldozers into the Sheikh Jarrah compound the place they tore down UNRWA buildings prompted swift condemnation from senior UN officers together with Secretary-Basic António Guterres and UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk.
Forward of that dramatic growth, on 14 January, Israeli forces entered an UNRWA well being centre in East Jerusalem and ordered it to shut. The company reported that its employees had been “terrified” and that the deteriorating state of affairs was a direct results of laws handed by the Israeli parliament in December, stepping up present anti-UNRWA legal guidelines adopted in 2024.
UNRWA premises have additionally been focused by arsonists amid a “large-scale disinformation marketing campaign” towards it by Israel, the company’s Commissioner-Basic has beforehand maintained.
This was regardless of a ruling final October by the UN’s prime court docket, the Worldwide Court docket of Justice, which restated that Israel was obliged “to facilitate UNRWA’s operations, not hinder or stop them. The court docket additionally harassed that Israel has no jurisdiction over East Jerusalem,” Mr. Lazzarini famous.
