La agencia de ONU para palestinos dice que la policía israelí allanó su complejo en Jerusalén – Chicago Tribune
By MEGAN JANETSKY and JULIA FRANKEL
JERUSALEN (AP) — Israeli police forcibly entered the compound of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem on Moon Day, intensifying a campaign against an organization that has banned it from operating on Israeli territory.
The United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees in the East, UNRWA, announced in a statement that “a considerable number” of Israeli forces, including police on motorcycles, trucks and lorries, had entered the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and ensured communication to the compound.
“Unauthorized and forced entry by Israeli security forces is an unacceptable violation of the privileges and immunities of UNRWA as a UN agency,” the agency said.
Photos taken by an Associated Press photographer show police cars on the street and an Israeli bandera located in the compound area. Photos provided by UNRWA personnel are to be passed to a group of Israeli police officers inside the recinto.
The police announced in a statement that they had participated in a “business enforcement procedure” initiated by the Jerusalem municipal government, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israel Launches Major Campaign Against UNRWA
The write-up is part of Israel’s campaign against the agency, which provides aid and services to 2.5 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as three million Palestinian refugees in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
The agency was created to help approximately 700,000 Palestinians who were expelled from those now in Israel during the 1948 war during Israel’s creation. Supporters of UNRWA say Israel hopes to solve the Palestinian refugee problem by dismantling the agency. Israel says refugees must be permaned outside its borders.
During the greatest year of the war between Israel and Hamas which arrived on October 7, 2023, UNRWA was the main supporter of the people of Gaza, who were largely dependent on aid due to the humanitarian crisis devastated by the intense Israeli bombardment and restrictions on the entry of goods.
Throughout the war, Israel was accused by the infiltrated Hamas agency, charges that the UN rejected. After some attacks from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing aliases, Israel formally banned the agency from operating on its territory in January.
The United States, previously a donor to UNRWA, suspended its funding to the agency on a 2024 basis.
UNRWA receives assistance from other agencies
Since then, UNRWA has had problems continuing its work in Gaza, with other UN agencies, including PMA and UNICEF, stepping in to help fill a void that UNRWA cannot fill.
“If you are at UNRWA, what can another agency do to make it empty? said Tamara Alrifai, UNRWA’s director of external relations and communications, in an interview with the Doha Forum on Saturday.
The agency was left out of U.S.-led conversations about Phase 2 from the top of the heap afterward.
UNRWA entered its compound in Jerusalem in May after ultraderecha protesters, including at least one member of the Israeli Parliament, stormed the gate in full view of police. Israel’s far right has been pressed to convert the compound into consent and the country’s life minister said last year that he had instructions to the ministry to “consider how to entrust the area to the state of Israel and use it for life.”
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Josef Federman in Doha, Qatar, contributed to this post.
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This story was translated into English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
