Israeli forces close the Unrwa schools ruled in East Jerusalem

The armed Israeli security forces forced the closure of three schools ruled by the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in Israel-ansexed Eastern Jerusalem.

Hundreds of Palestinian students were sent home from schools at the Shuafat refugee camp, just after the hours began on Thursday morning.

Unrwa General Commissioner, Philip Lazarini, said the Israeli authorities were refusing children their fundamental right to study and accused them of “grossly neglecting international law.”

The Israeli ban on UNRWA came into force earlier this year and Israel accuses the agency of having penetrated Hamas. UNRWA denies this claim and insists on its impartiality.

Videos showed girls in uniform who hug each other outside a Schauafat school after the Israeli forces arrived outside.

A closing order, fixed to the wall of the school, read: “It will be forbidden to manage educational institutions or to hire teachers, teaching staff or other staff and will be prohibited to accommodate students or allow students to enter this institution.”

UNRWA said that more than 550 students between the ages of six to 15 years are present and that one of the members of his staff has been detained in what his director of the occupied West Coast called a “traumatic experience for young children who are at an immediate risk of losing their access to education.”

The agency said Israeli police were also located in three other schools in East Jerusalem, forcing them to send their students to home.

“The storm of schools and their forcing to close is a gross neglect of international law,” writes Philip Lazarini to X. These schools are inviolable premises of the United Nations. “

He added: “With the imposition of closing orders issued last month, the Israeli authorities deny Palestinian children their fundamental right to study.

“UNRWA schools must continue to be opened in order to protect a whole generation of children.”

The Palestinian Administration, which manages parts of the west coast, not under Israeli control, said this move was “a violation of the right to education of children”.

The British Consulate in Jerusalem said the United Kingdom, the EU, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and Japan strongly opposed the closure orders issued against schools at UNRWA and stood “solidarity with students, parents and teachers.”

“UNRWA operates in Eastern Jerusalem at the UN term of office for the 1950 General Assembly. Israel is obliged by international humanitarian law to facilitate the proper work of all institutions dedicated to children’s education,” they added.

Last year, Israel’s parliament adopted laws banning the contact between Israeli officials and UNRWA, as well as banned the activity of the Agency on Israeli Territory.

Israel conquered Eastern Jerusalem, along with the rest of the west coast, in the Middle East war in 1967.

He effectively annexed the Eastern Jerusalem in 1980, which was not recognized by the bigger part of the international community, and sees the whole city as its capital.

The Palestinians see East Jerusalem as the capital of their hope for a future country.

Approximately 230,000 Israeli settlers currently live in Eastern Jerusalem along with 390,000 Palestinians.

The bigger part of the international community considers that the agreements built there and elsewhere in the west coast to be illegal in accordance with international law – a position supported by an consultative opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last year – although Israel disputed this.