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The bulldozing of the headquarters of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in occupied East Jerusalem has sparked condemnation from the world body and Palestinian leaders, who warn the move signals a \u201cbarbaric new era\u201d of unchecked defiance of international law.<\/p>\n
Israeli forces, accompanied by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, stormed the compound in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood on Tuesday, demolishing structures and confiscating equipment. Ben-Gvir described the destruction as a \u201chistoric day\u201d.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA\u2019s commissioner general, said the operation was a \u201cwake-up call\u201d for the world.<\/p>\n \u201cThis constitutes an unprecedented attack against a United Nations agency and its premises,\u201d Lazzarini wrote on X. \u201cWhat happens today to UNRWA will happen tomorrow to any other international organization or diplomatic mission \u2026 anywhere around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Lazzarini vehemently rejected Israel\u2019s justification for seizing the land.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Israeli Government\u2019s claims are false and illegal,\u201d he wrote. \u201cUNRWA has leased the land from the Government of Jordan since 1952. It is now being seized in blatant breach of international law.\u201d<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the demolition was following through on a 2024 law that banned UNRWA.<\/p>\n Lazzarini warned that a \u201clost moral compass\u201d is opening a dangerous chapter in which UN staff are demonised and their facilities destroyed with impunity.<\/p>\n UNRWA was created by the UN General Assembly in 1949 to provide basic support, including food, healthcare and education, to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees. More than 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes and land leading up to Israel\u2019s creation in 1948, which Palestinians remember as the Nakba, or \u201ccatastrophe\u201d.<\/p>\n UNRWA\u2019s operations are spread across Palestinian territory, including in East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.<\/p>\n Palestinian leaders view the demolition not merely as a property dispute but also as a calculated attempt to erase the political rights of refugees.<\/p>\n Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative party, told Al Jazeera Arabic that Israel is driven by \u201cabsolute stupidity\u201d in believing that destroying buildings will destroy the right of return of Palestinian refugees.<\/p>\n \u201cIt reminds them of their criminal past and the ethnic cleansing they carried out in 1948,\u201d Barghouti said.<\/p>\n He outlined three strategic goals behind the attack:<\/p>\n The incident has reignited the debate over Western complicity and double standards in Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinians.<\/p>\n Luisa Morgantini, former vice president of the European Parliament, told Al Jazeera Arabic that the international community\u2019s silence amounts to complicity.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Europeans are complicit, and the Americans are complicit because they didn\u2019t say anything and didn\u2019t act,\u201d Morgantini said. \u201cThe only way Israel can understand \u2026 is if, for example, Europe stops forging trade relations with Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n Barghouti echoed this, demanding the same treatment be applied to Israel as other nations.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are sanctions imposed on Russia, Venezuela, Cuba and Iran but not Israel?\u201d Barghouti asked. \u201cIt is the duty of the UN secretary-general now to demand governments of the world impose sanctions. This is the only way to deter Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n The demolition was carried out during a wider crackdown on humanitarian aid. Israel has recently revoked the operating licences of 37 aid groups, including Doctors Without Borders, for failing to comply with new regulations requiring them to provide detailed information on their staff members, funding and operations. The ban will impact the provision of life-saving assistance to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n Despite a ceasefire in place since October, Israel has continued to curb the entry of aid into the Palestinian enclave of 2.2 million people and has killed more than 460 Palestinians there.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, tensions remain high in East Jerusalem, where Israeli forces reportedly fired tear gas at an UNRWA vocational school shortly after the headquarters was raided on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The bulldozing of the headquarters of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in occupied East Jerusalem has sparked condemnation from the world body and Palestinian leaders, who warn the move signals a \u201cbarbaric new era\u201d of unchecked defiance of international law. Israeli forces, accompanied by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, stormed the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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