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A UNRWA official said there is "no visibility on how the law would be implemented."
By ELIAV BREUER JANUARY 22, 2025 20:49 Updated: JANUARY 22, 2025 20:51
A damaged sign is pictured at the headquarters of UNRWA following an Israeli raid in Gaza City, on July 12, 2024.
(photo credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters)
The ban on United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) operations in east Jerusalem will come into effect on January 31, but both UNRWA and Israeli government officials are still uncertain about what will happen on the ground, especially regarding education services, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
According to a UNRWA official, “We have no visibility on how the law would be implemented.”
The uncertainty also revolves around the fact that the High Court of Justice has yet to rule on a request for an injunction by a number of NGOs to delay the bill’s implementation. The court will rule on the injunction on January 27, just three days before the ban is set to take effect, the official said.
The official added, “We have 750 children in school in East Jerusalem, partway through their school year. We also provide 80,000 health consultations a year in East Jerusalem for 70,000 vulnerable people with no access to anything else.”
UNRWA provides education, health, and sanitation services in east Jerusalem, mainly in neighborhoods that lay beyond the separation fence, chiefly among them the Shuafat refugee camp. According to the Jerusalem Municipality, some 600 students study at three schools run by UNRWA in the camp. Another 300 students attend three schools run by neighborhoods within the fence, one each in Wadi Joz, Silwan, and Zur Baher.
Inside the camps
In addition, UNRWA runs two healthcare facilities, also primarily in the areas beyond the fence.
The Jerusalem Ministry has been responsible for coordinating with other government ministries in the preparation of services in east Jerusalem that were previously provided by UNRWA. According to the Jerusalem Ministry’s Deputy Director-General, Leeron Iflah, the immediate solution for the students from the Shuafat refugee camp will be temporary educational frameworks in a number of locations within the separation fence. The medium-term solution will be to set up a series of caravans at the entrance to the camp, and the long-term solution will be a large, permanent building within the camp that will include a school and other institutions. According to Iflah, approximately NIS 20 million had recently been approved to begin planning the permanent building.
However, it is still unclear whether or not these solutions, which are being carried out on the ground by the Jerusalem Municipality, will actually be implemented since they depend on cooperation from the residents. According to Iflah, the municipality has made strides in developing productive services in east Jerusalem as part of the previous government's five-year plan, decision 3790, which was taken in 2018. These, however, were primarily directed at residents within the fence and did not include the Shuafat refugee camp.
The temporary arrangements will cost NIS 23 million, which will come out of budgets allocated as part of government decision number 880 from August 2023, which includes a five-year plan to develop east Jerusalem. An additional NIS 4 million will go towards increasing the number of doctors and nurses at existing medical facilities within the separation fence, Iflah said. These will provide free infant care, including an expanded vaccination package, Iflah added.
The Health Ministry had also issued a tender to the International Red Cross to provide health services within the camp once the UNRWA ban comes into effect, Iflah said.
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The law to stop UNRWA’s operations in east Jerusalem was published on October 30. It said that the ban would come into effect in three months. A second law was passed to stop Israeli cooperation with UNRWA in all other regions, including Gaza and the West Bank. The laws were proposed after information emerged that some UNRWA employees had participated in the October 7 Hamas massacre and as a result of claims that UNRWA in Gaza had been infiltrated by Hamas.
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