Israel confiscates UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem and allocates it for building settlement units

Jerusalem - Ma'an - The so-called "Israel Land Authority" announced the confiscation of the land on which the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is located in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem, and the transformation of the site into a settlement outpost comprising 1,440 housing units. The newspaper "Israel Hayom" revealed today, Thursday, that this development comes within the framework of escalating measures against the agency, including efforts to enact laws that would strip the agency of its legitimacy and criminalize its activities, noting that the agency has begun to play a pivotal and central role in relief projects and the management of aid in the Gaza Strip, which has been subjected to a war of genocide for more than a year. This decision comes after the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee approved a bill aimed at severing ties between Israel and UNRWA. The law is expected to be put to a final vote in second and third readi ngs next week, and is part of a series of laws introduced by a number of Knesset members to restrict the agency's activities in the country. The bill calls for the cancellation of the 1967 agreement that allowed UNRWA to operate in Jerusalem, which will lead to the agency's complete cessation of activity. The law also prohibits any contact between Israeli and UNRWA employees, and cancels diplomatic and economic privileges that were granted to the agency. The Israeli authorities had demanded that UNRWA vacate its headquarters in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem on the grounds of 'using the land without the approval of the Israel Land Authority.' The Israeli authorities also decided to fine the agency and force it to pay tens of millions of shekels in back rent for the years in which it used the property. UNRWA headquarters in Sheikh Jarrah is considered the agency's main headquarters. Source: Maan News Agency