Israeli police shut down six schools operated by UNRWA in the Shuafat refugee camp and other neighborhoods of East Jerusalem on Thursday, as they implemented a law prohibiting the UN’s Palestinian aid agency from operating in the capital because of its ties to terror organizations, including Hamas.
The closures followed a police notice issued to the schools last month and marked the official enforcement of a law banning United Nations Relief and Works Agency operations within Israel’s sovereign territory, which came into effect in January. The law does not apply to the West Bank or the Gaza Strip.
An AFP photographer at the scene reported that a closure notice in Hebrew was left at the entrance of at least one of the schools, and UNRWA said at least one of its staff members was detained.
“From May 8, 2025, it will be prohibited to operate educational institutions, or employ teachers, teaching staff or any other staff, and it will be forbidden to accommodate students or allow the entry of students into this institution,” the closure order read.
Israel has long had a combative relationship with UNRWA, which it argues has perpetuated the Palestinian refugee crisis by allowing the status to be passed down through generations. Frustration with UNRWA in Jerusalem has picked up over the past decade as Israel has found the Gaza-ruling Hamas terror group embedded within the agency’s infrastructure.
That anger peaked following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, in which a number of UNRWA staffers were found to have participated. Israel has gone on to claim that 10 percent of the UN agency’s staff have ties to Hamas — a charge the agency has denied.
UNRWA’s director in the West Bank, Roland Friedrich, told AFP that “heavily armed” forces surrounded three UNRWA schools in East Jerusalem’s Shuafat camp at 9 a.m. on Thursday.
Friedrich added that 550 pupils aged six to 15 were present when the closure was enforced, calling the event “a traumatizing experience for young children who are at immediate risk of losing their access to education.”
Friedrich said that police were being deployed at three separate schools in other parts of East Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the move in a statement to AFP, calling it a “violation of children’s right to education.”
UNRWA is the main provider of education and health care to Palestinians across East Jerusalem. Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, though the United Nations considers its annexation of the city’s eastern sector illegal.
The Education Ministry says it will place the students in other Jerusalem schools. But parents, teachers, and administrators caution that closing the main schools in East Jerusalem will force their children to go through crowded and dangerous checkpoints daily, and some do not have the correct permits to pass through.
In a previous statement to The Associated Press, the Education Ministry said it was closing the schools because they were operating without a license. UNRWA administrators pledged to keep the schools open for as long as possible.
According to the Jerusalem Municipality, approximately 900 students were enrolled in UNRWA-run schools in the city. Since the law’s passage, the municipality has worked to provide alternative placements for these students in other schools across East Jerusalem.
In addition, a new educational center is being planned in the Shuafat refugee camp that will include several schools operating under the supervision of Israel’s Education Ministry.