Demolishing UNRWA and its institutions... undermining humanitarian values and international laws

Hakam Shahwan: Israel is pursuing policies of imposing a new fait accompli, violating international laws and the immunities and privileges enjoyed by UN organizations.
Dr. Ismail Muslimani: Cutting electricity to the Qalandia training institute is a step with political and security implications that brings back the scenario of targeting UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem.
Farah Hamad: The new Israeli measures and laws coincide with decisions by a group of countries, led by the United States, to cut funding to UNRWA.
Sami Masha'sha': What is happening at the Qalandia training institute is part of an integrated project to re-engineer the refugee issue from its roots: materially on the ground, institutionally, and legally.
Dr. Adnan Effendi: Cutting electricity to the Qalandia center comes within the occupation's attempts to end UNRWA's presence in Jerusalem, and it is not unlikely that the occupation will proceed to demolish it.
Mohammed Zuhdi Shaheen: The arbitrary and aggressive Israeli measures constitute a clear challenge and a violation of international law, aiming to liquidate the refugee issue and undermine the right of return. 

Exclusive to Al-Quds-
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is subjected to a systematic Israeli attack and attempts to end its role and dissolve it. The latest of these measures is what some UNRWA institutions in and around Jerusalem and the Qalandia Vocational Training Center have been exposed to, under flimsy pretexts that are nothing but dust in the eyes, as the deep reasons for targeting it are related to the concept on which it was founded, and connected to Resolution 194 and the right of return.
Writers and analysts, in interviews with "Al-Quds", believe that the arbitrary and illegal measures taken by the occupation government in Jerusalem regarding UNRWA institutions are unprecedented globally, as electricity and water have been cut off from medical centers, schools, and training centers. They consider the weakness of international reactions and global silence to be the main factor allowing Israel to continue these attacks, which aim to liquidate the presence of UN institutions in Jerusalem.

Unprecedented Israeli measures

Hakam Shahwan, former head of the Executive Office and head of UNRWA staff, believes that what is happening now in Jerusalem, in terms of arbitrary and illegal measures by the Israeli government, is unprecedented globally.  
He adds: We have not found any government of any country in the world acting in such brutal and inhumane ways towards a UN organization whose original work is to provide relief and humanitarian aid.
Shahwan asks: How can electricity and water be cut off from medical centers and schools?
He says: The beneficiaries are innocent children and elderly patients who are most in need of these services.  
Shahwan emphasizes that the weakness of international reactions and global silence towards Israel is the main factor allowing these attacks to continue, expressing his surprise that the Commissioner-General of UNRWA has not taken any legal action to prevent the implementation of these decisions, and it was possible, indeed his legal and moral duty, to do so, at least to freeze the decisions.  
Shahwan adds: I am also surprised that the rest of the UN institutions operating in Jerusalem have actually abandoned supporting UNRWA during this difficult period, and that UNRWA had, for example, offered to hand over its headquarters in Sheikh Jarrah to other UN institutions to preserve the headquarters, but this offer was rejected.
He continued: Also, a number of other UN organizations refuse to assist UNRWA in many logistical matters and financial transfers, as if UNRWA has also become boycotted from within the UN system.  
Shahwan points out that there is popular silence until now, as we have not seen actual movements rejecting the closure of UNRWA headquarters, and this is certainly worrying, because the beneficiaries are in a great shock and still believe that UNRWA can deal with these attacks alone.  
Shahwan explains: Today we are facing a new reality, and Israel is the one that pursues policies of imposing a new fait accompli every time, and decisions of this kind would violate international laws and the immunities and privileges enjoyed by all UN organizations and are considered unprecedented decisions.
Shahwan believes that "the response to the decisions must come with unprecedented international and legal measures as well. I am in favor of immediate lawsuits by UNRWA, beneficiaries, and UN member states against the Israeli government, not only before international courts, but even before local courts."
Shahwan calls on all donor countries to UNRWA to file international and local legal cases demanding a halt to the attacks and compensation for UNRWA and the beneficiaries for the resulting damages.  
He says: There is confiscation of property and documents and destruction of buildings happening before the cameras of the local and international press without any regard for anyone. These countries can also take decisions they know well in order to pressure Israel to retract its attacks against UNRWA.
 Shahwan mentions that the UN Secretary-General had stated some time ago that he was studying the possibility of resorting to the International Court, believing that the study period has ended, and that the legal department at the New York headquarters should remove the restrictions on UNRWA regarding legal action and allow all necessary measures to be taken to confront the Israeli attacks against one of the largest UN institutions, and he said: We had prepared a complete action plan to deal with this scenario in 2019, and I had submitted it again to UNRWA for adoption and to bear the responsibility of fully defending its mandate.

An escalating path to end the presence of UN institutions

Jerusalemite writer Dr. Ismail Muslimani says: Cutting electricity to the vocational training center in Qalandia is not a fleeting technical measure, but a step with political and security implications that brings back the scenario of targeting UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem, and raises a serious question: Are we facing an escalating path to end the presence of these institutions in preparation for liquidating their role?
He adds: First, in terms of significance, cutting electricity is used as a "soft" but effective pressure tool: disrupting work without an official closure decision, administrative and financial exhaustion, and pushing the institution to self-cessation. This method has been tried before with UNRWA through closures, eviction orders, legal restrictions, and then transferring the file to the category of "administrative violation" instead of being a direct political targeting.
Muslimani continues: Second, the specificity of the Qalandia center lies in its nature: a vocational training institution that serves a Palestinian youth segment, and provides economic and educational alternatives in an area considered sensitive security and politically. Striking this center means striking one of the pillars of social resilience, and not just a building or electricity services.

Expected scenarios

As for the expected scenarios, Muslimani indicates that three main paths can be drawn:
The first scenario: Gradual escalation: It begins with cutting electricity, followed by imposing fines, then closure orders under the pretext of "safety" or "licensing," leading to complete eviction. This scenario is consistent with what happened to UNRWA headquarters, and aims to create a new reality without direct international confrontation.
The second scenario: Temporary containment: Electricity may be restored after international pressure or legal intervention, but with the center remaining under threat and surveillance, and the file being used as a political bargaining chip in any subsequent confrontation with international institutions.
The third scenario: Internationalization and legal confrontation: If international or UN bodies move early, the file may turn into a legal-diplomatic issue, which limits the occupation's ability to proceed, but does not negate its long-term intentions.
Muslimani concludes: What is happening in Qalandia cannot be separated from a broader strategy to redefine the international and Palestinian presence in Jerusalem and its surroundings. Cutting electricity is a political message before it is a service measure, and a test of the limits of local and international silence. If this measure passes without a response, it will be a model to be replicated, just as happened with UNRWA.


 The attack on UNRWA is escalating
 
Farah Hamad, coordinator of the community activation unit at the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, says: In light of the accelerating Israeli measures against UNRWA in the previous two years, including draft laws to prevent UNRWA from operating in "Israel" and canceling the 1967 agreement between the agency and the Israeli system, and expelling international staff and/or not renewing their entry visas for work, and what followed later from stopping the provision of public services such as electricity, water, and licenses, and finally starting to demolish UNRWA headquarters in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem and targeting the vocational training institute in Qalandia, it must be emphasized that the attack on UNRWA is escalating.
Hamad points out that these measures are not new, nor were they merely part of the Israeli political escalation under the umbrella of the genocide war on the Gaza Strip. Rather, they are a complete and systematic campaign – with American and European support – to dismantle and abolish UNRWA, and to definitively eliminate the Palestinian refugee issue.
Hamad believes that the Israeli campaign against UNRWA during the previous period took multiple forms of attack, not limited to demolishing and evacuating buildings in the West Bank and Jerusalem, but also extended to targeting its buildings and staff with direct shelling in the Gaza Strip. She adds that "Israel" has primarily worked to obstruct UNRWA's work and paralyze its ability to provide services, exploiting the funding crisis that the agency has been suffering from for several years, in addition to international political pressure, and attempts to replace the agency with other international institutions.
Hamad affirms that these new Israeli measures, decisions, and laws coincide with decisions by a group of countries, led by the United States, to cut funding to the agency, investigate its neutrality, and work towards "reforming" it – considering it a promoter of hatred and anti-Semitism among Palestinians – according to the claims of those countries. She says: It is not possible to view each new decision and measure in isolation from the other, as they all work in favor of Israeli plans to obstruct UNRWA's work and then abolish and replace it.
Hamad believes that the fundamental flaw, in addition to the complicity of countries with "Israel," is the failure of countries and the United Nations to take serious measures against repeated Israeli crimes, and the leniency in dealing with its violations of international law, and the failure to impose political, economic, and military sanctions on it.

What is happening at the Qalandia training institute is not a fleeting measure

Sami Masha'sha', former media advisor to UNRWA, says: What is happening now at the Qalandia training institute is not a technical or administrative measure, but part of an integrated project to re-engineer the Palestinian refugee issue from its roots: materially on the ground, institutionally, and legally.
He adds: When electricity is cut off from the Qalandia training center, we are facing a political decision that practically aims to disrupt and close one of the oldest and most important vocational and technical training institutes in the Middle East, a center that receives hundreds of students from various parts of the West Bank, who will be deprived all at once of completing their educational programs, and a basic opportunity to acquire vocational skills will be taken away from them in an economy already suffering from unemployment and restrictions, leading to the imminent and permanent closure of the institute.
Masha'sha' emphasizes that the Qalandia institute is not an isolated case, but part of a systematic policy aimed at ending UNRWA's presence in Jerusalem and its surroundings, pointing out that the agency's headquarters in East Jerusalem was raided, its facilities vandalized and destroyed, and its contents confiscated, and a large settlement will be built on it. Also, schools and clinics in Shuafat refugee camp have been notified of closure decisions and have had their electricity cut off.
Masha'sha' believes that UNRWA facilities in the Old City and its surroundings are facing comprehensive and definitive administrative and service strangulation measures. In parallel, the northern West Bank camps – Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams – are subjected to repeated military operations that include demolishing homes, forced displacement, and destroying infrastructure. The rest of the camps are targeted. The goal is one: to remove UNRWA from Jerusalem, exhaust the camps in the West Bank and dismantle the social environment of refugees, and blur the status of "refugee" in preparation for emptying the land of its owners.
Masha'sha' believes that what is happening in Jerusalem and the West Bank is not separate from what is planned for Gaza. In both cases, politics is replaced by administration, rights by projects, and refugees by new maps that exclude them entirely. In Jerusalem, UNRWA is being dismantled through laws, cutting services, and gradual settlement.
He points out that all of this complements the Trump-Kushner vision and plan, which excludes UNRWA from rebuilding Gaza, excludes camps from reconstruction priorities (in reality, they will not be rebuilt), and replaces rights with investment frameworks. Infrastructure projects are offered instead of political solutions, and development is promoted as an alternative to return. Here, institutions are removed step by step, and there, geography is re-engineered under the title of "the day after." The result is one: ending UNRWA's political role, liquidating the centrality of the camp, and transforming the refugee issue from a matter of right to a manageable and closable humanitarian file.
He emphasizes that targeting UNRWA is not a matter of reform or resource management, but a central step in dismantling the right of return itself. When training centers are closed, services are weakened, and international recognition is gradually erased, the refugee is redefined as a temporary humanitarian case, not as a permanent rights holder.
Masha'sha' says: The Qalandia training center stands today at the heart of this battle. Its closure is a new harsh slap. We will sit on the fence watching its demolition and closure. And we will sit on the fence watching with exhaustion a systematic erasure, and intensive efforts in which refugees are pushed out of geography, out of politics, and out of the future.


A series of measures against UN institutions

For his part, Dr. Adnan Effendi, a specialist in Israeli affairs, says: The Israeli occupation state is cutting electricity to an important UNRWA institution, the vocational training center, which was established in 1953 to provide vocational education to the children of Palestinian refugees. According to UNRWA sources, 325 students from various camps in the West Bank study there.
Effendi confirms that this step comes after a series of extremist measures taken by the occupation state against UNRWA institutions, the latest of which was the demolition of UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem in the Sheikh Jarrah area a short while ago, which the United Nations considered a violation of international law as a result of the law passed by the Israeli Knesset in October 2024, which prohibits UNRWA's work and prevents Israeli officials from communicating with it.
He points out that this extremist step by the occupation government will deprive a large number of Palestinian students studying at the center from continuing their vocational education inside the center, especially since the students are in the middle of the academic year, and cutting electricity to the center will completely paralyze the center from providing educational services to students.
Effendi believes that cutting electricity to the Qalandia vocational center comes within the occupation's attempts to end UNRWA's presence in East Jerusalem, especially since the occupation state claims ownership of the land on which the center is located, and the occupation may take a larger step by demolishing the center as happened in Sheikh Jarrah, and the step of cutting electricity may be in preparation for that and to test UNRWA's pulse and the reaction of local and international institutions, especially since the demolition of the headquarters in Sheikh Jarrah had a great international and local echo and protests from the United Nations.
Effendi believes that the occupation, which is governed by this extremist and most extreme right-wing government, will not hesitate to demolish the center, under the pretext that the land on which the center is located is owned by the occupation, as it claimed about the UN headquarters in Sheikh Jarrah.
He says: If the center is demolished, this step paves the way for ending the Palestinian refugee issue according to the Israeli vision that has been trying for years to target everything related to Palestinian refugees, from targeting Palestinian camps in the northern West Bank and trying to prevent UNRWA institutions from operating in the West Bank, especially in the northern camps.
Effendi adds: All these steps targeting the Palestinian refugee file come amid timid protests from international institutions and some countries in the world, and this will encourage the occupation state to take any step without hesitation.
Effendi believes that action is required, especially from Palestinian Authority institutions, and demanding intervention from international institutions, especially since UNRWA is an international institution affiliated with the United Nations, and its institutions must be protected, and the occupation must be prevented from taking extremist racist steps against its service and administrative institutions, to preserve the Palestinian refugee issue until the right of return, which has been recognized by all international institutions, is achieved.
   
A plan to liquidate UNRWA's presence in Jerusalem
In turn, writer and political analyst Mohammed Zuhdi Shaheen confirms that cutting off electricity to the Vocational Training Center (Qalandia Vocational Training College), an institution affiliated with the Relief Agency established in 1953, can only be interpreted as falling within the context of the systematic Israeli aggressive political plan represented by the hostile stance that seeks to liquidate the presence of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
He points out that "this deep-seated hostile stance for decades has been officially translated into decisions by the Israeli Knesset in October 2024, which stipulated the prohibition of this international institution's work in East Jerusalem, and it was classified by Israel as a terrorist organization. Among the decisions were decisions to cut off water and electricity to properties occupied by UNRWA, and recently we witnessed the destruction of its facilities in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood."
Shaheen believes that these arbitrary and aggressive measures constitute a clear challenge and a violation of international law, and aim to undermine the right of return and impose Israeli sovereignty by force, despite widespread international condemnations.
Shaheen says: This Israeli arrogance and insolence are encouraged by the complete American bias towards Israel, and what is happening today has been paved and prepared for by the official recognition by President Donald Trump's administration on December 6, 2017, that occupied Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.