DAMASCUS, Syria\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The United Nations is considering how to respond to Israel\u2019s announcement that it will build a military complex on the former headquarters of the U.N. relief agency for Palestinians in east Jerusalem, an official said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Israel over the weekend announced the government\u2019s approval for a defense ministry complex at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency \u2019s compound in Sheikh Jarrah, including a museum and enlistment office.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe matter is currently under consideration at the level of the legal council, the highest legal authority of the United Nations in New York,\u201d UNRWA Deputy Commissioner General Natalie Boucly told the Associated Press during a visit to Syria.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are U.N. premises and, at a minimum, this is a breach of the 1946 UN Convention on privileges and immunities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Israel bulldozed part of the UNRWA compound in January, capping off a decades-long campaign against the agency, which became acute following the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.<\/p>\n
Israel has accused the U.N. agency of harboring staff members affiliated with Hamas, accusing some of taking part in the attacks. UNRWA leaders have said they took swift action against the employees accused of taking part in the 2023 attacks, and have denied allegations that the agency tolerates or collaborates with Hamas.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s Defense Minister Israel Katz said the plan to build a defense complex on the former UNRWA headquarters was \u201ca decision of sovereignty, Zionism and security.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a place where an organization that became part of the terror and incitement mechanism against Israel operated, institutions will be established that will strengthen Jerusalem, the (Israeli army), and the State of Israel,\u201d Katz said in a statement on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The decision came on Jerusalem Day, which marks Israel\u2019s capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel considers the entire city of Jerusalem its capital, while the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of their future independent state.<\/p>\n
The UNRWA compound was shut down in May 2025 after far-right protesters, including at least one member of parliament, overran its gate in view of the police.<\/p>\n
UNRWA\u2019s mandate is to provide aid and services to some 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. Its operations were curtailed last year when Israel\u2019s Knesset passed legislation severing ties and banning it from functioning in what it defines as Israel \u2014 including east Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
Boucly said the humanitarian situation in Gaza \u201cremains absolutely dire.\u201d While UNRWA international staff have been barred by Israel from entering Gaza, about 10,000 local staff continue to work in the enclave, including teachers, health workers and sanitation workers, she said.<\/p>\n
Despite a tenuous ceasefire, \u201cthere are issues with insufficient aid coming in,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is not coming in at scale and reconstruction is not starting fast enough for the people to see a real change on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boucly spoke to the AP from Syria\u2019s Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, where the situation is somewhat more hopeful as former residents who fled during the country\u2019s 14-year civil war have been gradually returning.<\/p>\n
Taken over by a series of militant groups then bombarded by the military of then President Bashar Assad, the camp was all but abandoned after 2018. The buildings that were not destroyed by bombs were demolished by the government or stripped by thieves.<\/p>\n
After Assad\u2019s ouster in 2024, former residents began to trickle back and repair their damaged homes. As of April, some 60,000 people had returned to the camp, of which 80% are Palestinian refugees, Boucly said.<\/p>\n
Assistance to those returning to the camp has been limited, she acknowledged. UNRWA has received donor aid to rehabilitate schools and health centers, but has been unable to provide more than minor assistance to people needing to repair their damaged homes, she said.<\/p>\n
Despite anxieties about shrinking funding, she said, \u201cI think there is a situation of hope for Palestine refugees\u201d in Syria.<\/p>\n
Sanadiki writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Abby Sewell in Beirut and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DAMASCUS, Syria\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The United Nations is considering how to respond to Israel\u2019s announcement that it will build a military…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[84,602,17914,496,41552,37,41551,29113,4436,41550,20627,95,11148,1243,41549],"class_list":["post-121798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-attack","tag-decision","tag-east-jerusalem","tag-gaza","tag-humanitarian-situation","tag-israel","tag-military-compound","tag-palestinian-refugee","tag-part","tag-relief-agency","tag-site","tag-syria","tag-u-n","tag-united-nations","tag-unrwa-compound"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116602845640743991","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}