‘Barbaric new era’: Palestinians, UN slam Israeli demolition of UNRWA HQ

Head of UN bureau for Palestinian refugees says demolition successful occupied East Jerusalem is simply a ‘blatant breach of planetary law’.

The bulldozing of the office of the United Nations bureau for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) successful occupied East Jerusalem has sparked condemnation from the satellite assemblage and Palestinian leaders, who pass the determination signals a “barbaric caller era” of unchecked defiance of planetary law.

Israeli forces, accompanied by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, stormed the compound successful the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood connected Tuesday, demolishing structures and confiscating equipment. Ben-Gvir described the demolition arsenic a “historic day”.

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Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s commissioner general, said the cognition was a “wake-up call” for the world.

“This constitutes an unprecedented onslaught against a United Nations bureau and its premises,” Lazzarini wrote connected X. “What happens contiguous to UNRWA volition hap time to immoderate different planetary enactment oregon diplomatic ngo … anyplace astir the world.”

Lazzarini vehemently rejected Israel’s justification for seizing the land.

“The Israeli Government’s claims are mendacious and illegal,” helium wrote. “UNRWA has leased the onshore from the Government of Jordan since 1952. It is present being seized successful blatant breach of planetary law.”

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the demolition was pursuing done connected a 2024 instrumentality that banned UNRWA.

Lazzarini warned that a “lost motivation compass” is opening a unsafe section successful which UN unit are demonised and their facilities destroyed with impunity.

UNRWA was created by the UN General Assembly successful 1949 to supply basal support, including food, healthcare and education, to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees. More than 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes and onshore starring up to Israel’s instauration successful 1948, which Palestinians retrieve arsenic the Nakba, oregon “catastrophe”.

UNRWA’s operations are dispersed crossed Palestinian territory, including successful East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

Erasing the close of return

Palestinian leaders presumption the demolition not simply arsenic a spot quality but besides arsenic a calculated effort to erase the governmental rights of refugees.

Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative party, told Al Jazeera Arabic that Israel is driven by “absolute stupidity” successful believing that destroying buildings volition destruct the close of instrumentality of Palestinian refugees.

“It reminds them of their transgression past and the taste cleansing they carried retired successful 1948,” Barghouti said.

He outlined 3 strategical goals down the attack:

• Political: erasing the exile issue
• Existential: destroying the “system of Palestinian steadfastness” by cutting disconnected wellness and acquisition services
• Territorial: facilitating the “complete Judaisation of Jerusalem and the West Bank”

Calls for sanctions

The incidental has reignited the statement implicit Western complicity and treble standards successful Israel’s attraction of Palestinians.

Luisa Morgantini, erstwhile vice president of the European Parliament, told Al Jazeera Arabic that the planetary community’s soundlessness amounts to complicity.

“The Europeans are complicit, and the Americans are complicit due to the fact that they didn’t accidental thing and didn’t act,” Morgantini said. “The lone mode Israel tin recognize … is if, for example, Europe stops forging commercialized relations with Israel.”

Barghouti echoed this, demanding the aforesaid attraction beryllium applied to Israel arsenic different nations.

“Why are sanctions imposed connected Russia, Venezuela, Cuba and Iran but not Israel?” Barghouti asked. “It is the work of the UN secretary-general present to request governments of the satellite enforce sanctions. This is the lone mode to deter Israel.”

The demolition was carried retired during a wider crackdown connected humanitarian aid. Israel has precocious revoked the operating licences of 37 assistance groups, including Doctors Without Borders, for failing to comply with caller regulations requiring them to supply elaborate accusation connected their unit members, backing and operations. The prohibition volition interaction the proviso of life-saving assistance to Palestinians successful the Gaza Strip.

Despite a ceasefire successful spot since October, Israel has continued to curb the introduction of assistance into the Palestinian enclave of 2.2 cardinal radical and has killed much than 460 Palestinians there.

Meanwhile, tensions stay precocious successful East Jerusalem, wherever Israeli forces reportedly fired teardrop state astatine an UNRWA vocational schoolhouse soon aft the office was raided connected Tuesday.