Israel started demolishing the UNRWA headquarters in East Jerusalem Tuesday, following passage of a legislation that banned the actions of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
Police forces, alongside enforcement officers from the Israel Land Authority, arrived on the compound with bulldozers and engineering tools and started demolishing the location, in keeping with footage obtained by NCS. The Israel Land Authority mentioned in an announcement that legislation enforcement “secured full possession of the property and began clearing the premises.”
UNRWA slammed the transfer as “an unprecedented attack against a United Nations agency and its premises.” The agency wrote on X that it represented a “new level of open and deliberate defiance of international law, including of the privileges and immunities of the United Nations, by the State of Israel.”
The UN Convention on Privileges and Immunities, which Israel joined in 1949, explicitly states that UN compounds and amenities “shall be inviolable” and “immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation and any other form of interference, whether by executive, administrative, judicial, or legislate action.”
Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 battle and annexed it in 1980. International legislation and a lot of the worldwide group take into account the territory occupied, and the Palestinians need it because the capital of a future unbiased state. Israel considers the complete metropolis as its “eternal capital.”
The Israeli international ministry mentioned in an announcement that “The State of Israel owns the Jerusalem compound,” including that UNRWA had already ceased its operations at this web site and the UN now not maintains employees or actions there.
“The compound does not enjoy any immunity and its seizure was carried out in accordance with both Israeli and international law”, the ministry mentioned, calling UNRWA “a greenhouse for terrorism that long ago ceased to be a humanitarian organization.”
Israel has longstanding issues with UNRWA, accusing it of aiding Hamas and calling for it to be dismantled fully, allegations the agency has repeatedly denied. Following the October 7 Hamas-led assault, the federal government intensified its marketing campaign in opposition to the UN agency, citing involvement of a few of its staff and using its amenities in Gaza for assaults on Israel and to hide Israeli hostages.
In late-2024, the Israeli parliament handed legal guidelines banning UNRWA operations in Israel and barring official contact with the agency. Further laws in December 2025 prohibited offering water and electrical energy to UNRWA properties and permitting the state to reclaim land from the agency’s compounds in East Jerusalem. Another UNRWA property, situated in the Kfar ‘Aqab space of East Jerusalem, is predicted to endure an identical course of in the close to future.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who arrived on the web site to comply with the police evacuation and demolition actions, mentioned “This is a historic day, a day of celebration, and an important day for the restoration of governance in Jerusalem. For years, these supporters of terror operated here, and today they are being removed along with everything they built.”
The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the demolition.
“The secretary general urges the government of Israel to immediately cease the demolition of the UNRWA Sheikh Jarrah compound, and to return and restore the compound and other UNRWA premises to the United Nations without delay,” his spokesperson instructed reporters on Tuesday.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority referred to as the demolition a “serious breach of all rules and norms of international law” and urged the UN and member states to take motion to cease the demolitions.