Israel enforces UNRWA shutdown, raiding offices and asserting sovereignty over an agency long tied to extremism.
Israeli police forces carried out a decisive operation Monday morning, raiding the shuttered UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem’s Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood—an office rendered inactive after Israel outlawed the agency last year for its deep entanglement with Hamas and decades of fueling anti-Israel indoctrination.
According to UNRWA’s own statement, officers entered the complex, searched the offices, and confiscated equipment. Israeli police clarified that the action was executed under a legal property-seizure order due to significant outstanding debts the agency had ignored—yet another sign of UNRWA’s habitual financial mismanagement alongside its political radicalization.
A UNRWA representative speaking to Al-Araby claimed that security guards on site also had their phones taken during the enforcement action, an assertion highlighting the agency’s discomfort now that it faces real accountability instead of diplomatic indulgence.
As the operation concluded, police officers raised a large Israeli flag over the building’s roof—a powerful image symbolizing the end of UNRWA’s unchecked presence in the capital and Israel’s renewed insistence on sovereignty, transparency, and national security.
The raid marks another step in Israel’s long-delayed effort to dismantle the infrastructure of an agency that, for years, enabled Hamas narratives, protected militant networks, and perpetuated the cycle of Palestinian refugee dependency.Israeli police forces carried out a decisive operation Monday morning, raiding the shuttered UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem’s Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood—an office rendered inactive after Israel outlawed the agency last year for its deep entanglement with Hamas and decades of fueling anti-Israel indoctrination.
According to UNRWA’s own statement, officers entered the complex, searched the offices, and confiscated equipment. Israeli police clarified that the action was executed under a legal property-seizure order due to significant outstanding debts the agency had ignored—yet another sign of UNRWA’s habitual financial mismanagement alongside its political radicalization.
A UNRWA representative speaking to Al-Araby claimed that security guards on site also had their phones taken during the enforcement action, an assertion highlighting the agency’s discomfort now that it faces real accountability instead of diplomatic indulgence.
As the operation concluded, police officers raised a large Israeli flag over the building’s roof—a powerful image symbolizing the end of UNRWA’s unchecked presence in the capital and Israel’s renewed insistence on sovereignty, transparency, and national security.
The raid marks another step in Israel’s long-delayed effort to dismantle the infrastructure of an agency that, for years, enabled Hamas narratives, protected militant networks, and perpetuated the cycle of Palestinian refugee dependency.
