2024-02-13 11:22:18
Israeli media reported that the Israeli occupation government took measures to ban the work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in occupied Jerusalem.
Anatolia Agency indicated that the moves to ban the activity of the UN agency come in the context of an incitement campaign led by the extreme right, taking advantage of the accusations leveled by Israel once morest UNRWA in the Gaza Strip, which have not been proven true.
UNRWA runs the Shuafat refugee camp, which is the only camp in East Jerusalem. It also runs several schools and medical clinics, in addition to having its headquarters in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
Media sources indicate that the Israeli authorities have taken the following steps to close and ban the agency’s work in East Jerusalem:
- A draft law to stop the agency’s operations in East Jerusalem was presented to the Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislative Affairs the day before yesterday, Sunday, and it was approved.
- The draft law will be presented to the Israeli Knesset for a preliminary reading tomorrow, Wednesday.
- The draft law must then be approved in three readings before it becomes a final law, and the voting dates are not yet clear.
- Yesterday, Monday, Housing Minister Rabbi Yitzhak Godknopf issued instructions to the director of the so-called “Israel Lands Authority,” Yankee Quint, to vacate the UNRWA administration headquarters.
- He also issued an order to immediately stop all Israeli land contracts signed with UNRWA.
- Another order to immediately remove the agency from all lands it leases and those it uses in Israel.
The Israeli Minister of Housing stated in a letter addressed to the director of the so-called “Israel Lands Authority”: “I am communicating with you, by virtue of my position as Chairman of the Israel Lands Council, regarding the lands belonging to the Authority that are used by UNRWA. I would like to immediately stop all Israeli land contracts with the criminal organization UNRWA, and remove them from… The lands that were leased to it and from all the lands used by the agency in the State of Israel.”
He referred in particular to the agency’s main headquarters in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, as well as the agency’s headquarters in the Kafr Aqab neighborhood, north of East Jerusalem.
The Israeli occupation housing minister wrote, “I would like urgently to obtain the full details of all contracts and rents that were concluded for the benefit of UNRWA and the expiration dates of the contracts with it, whether in the Ma’alot Dafna (settlement) neighborhood in Jerusalem (referring to the Sheikh Jarrah headquarters) and Kafr Aqab.”
Since January 26, 18 countries in addition to the European Union have suspended their funding to UNRWA once morest the backdrop of Israeli allegations that employees working for the agency participated in the attack launched by the Palestinian resistance on the Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip on October 7. The agency announced that it Investigate Israeli allegations.
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