Palestinian students in east Jerusalem face an uncertain future after Israel ordered the closure of six schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Israeli police and education ministry officials gave the agency, known as UNRWA, 30 days to shut down its operations in the area in April.
Palestinian students removed from class, schools closed
As that deadline expired on Thursday, May 8, UNRWA said heavily armed guards arrived to enforce the closures and displaced more than 550 students, some as young as 6 years old, from their classrooms.
“Storming schools and forcing them shut is a blatant disregard of international law,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said. “These schools are inviolable premises of the United Nations.”
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UNRWA operates more than 700 schools across the Middle East, serving more than 500,000 Palestinian students.
What does UNRWA do?
UNRWA runs educational and humanitarian assistance programs in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and east Jerusalem. The agency said these areas still rely heavily on support for Palestinian refugees, as they have since 1949.
The agency was established after the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948 to assist hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the conflict.
What schools closed and where?
The six schools at the center of the dispute are located in east Jerusalem, a territory Israel took control of following the 1967 Mideast war. Israel later annexed east Jerusalem to be included within its territory.
The international community has not recognized that annexation. United Nations Resolution 476, adopted in 1980, said the annexation of east Jerusalem is “null and void” under international law.
Tensions escalated further after the war in Gaza broke out in October 2023, triggered by a Hamas-led attack on Israel. Since then, the Israeli government has banned UNRWA from operating within its territory.
Israeli officials accused UNRWA of spreading antisemitic content in its schools, though the agency denied the claim. UNRWA has also faced allegations of ties to terrorist groups in Gaza, though it maintains it operates independently and in line with humanitarian principles.
Israel’s Ministry of Education said students displaced by the closures will be placed in schools operating within the official education system in Jerusalem. The ministry previously told The Associated Press that UNRWA’s schools were considered illegal because they did not have proper licenses.
