Israel begins demolition of UNRWA Jerusalem HQ

Israeli authorities on Tuesday began demolishing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) headquarters in Jerusalem, after a new law banning the organization’s operations in the country took effect.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir hailed the move as a “historic day, a holiday, a very important day for governance,” saying the government was finally expelling “terror supporters … with everything they built here” and vowing that “this is what will be done to every terror supporter.”

Yisrael Beiteinu Knesset member Yulia Malinovsky, who played a leading role in introducing the legislation, shared a “Shehecheyanu” prayer in an X post along with a video of the demolition.

“The UNRWA terror headquarters on Ammunition Hill was evacuated this morning and is being demolished right now, just before the State of Israel enters the area. This is happening as a direct result of the laws I initiated to remove UNRWA from Israel. And a redeemer shall come to Zion!” she wrote.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said Israel owns the former UNRWA compound in Jerusalem where the Israel Land Authority is now operating, adding that UNRWA had already halted its activities there and withdrawn all personnel before legislation affecting the agency was passed in January 2025.

“The compound does not enjoy any immunity and the seizure of this compound by Israeli authorities was carried out in accordance with both Israeli and international law,” according to Marmorstein. “Today’s move does not constitute a new policy, but rather the implementation of existing Israeli legislation concerning UNRWA.”

Marmorstein accused UNRWA staff of taking part in the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks and the kidnapping of Israelis, stating that many employees are members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and that the agency’s facilities and infrastructure have been used for tunnels, rocket fire and other terrorist activity.

“UNRWA-Hamas has long ceased to be a humanitarian aid organization, serving instead as a greenhouse for terrorism,” he concluded.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry highlighted, as an example of the UNRWA-Hamas connection, video from Oct. 7 showing a UNRWA social worker abducting the body of slain Israeli civilian Jonathan Samerano, saying that “this is not humanitarian work. This is terror infiltration, exposed in action.”

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini condemned Tuesday’s actions, calling it an “unprecedented attack” on a U.N. agency and its premises, accusing Israel of openly and deliberately defying international law and the United Nations’ privileges and immunities.

He said Israel, like all U.N. member states, is obliged to respect the inviolability of U.N. sites and warned that the move follows earlier steps aimed at erasing Palestine refugee identity, including the Jan. 14 raid and closure order at an UNRWA health center in eastern Jerusalem and looming cuts to water and power at UNRWA health and education facilities under recently passed legislation.

Lazzarini linked these measures to a broader pattern he said runs counter to an October International Court of Justice ruling that reaffirmed Israel’s duty under international law to facilitate, rather than obstruct, UNRWA’s work, and said that Israel has no jurisdiction over the eastern section of Jerusalem. He called the developments a “wake-up call,” warning that what is happening to UNRWA today could soon be directed at other international organizations or diplomatic missions and that international law itself risks sliding into irrelevance if member states fail to respond.

In October 2024, the Knesset passed legislation that bars UNRWA from operating offices or providing services within Israel’s sovereign territory. The move came after the exposure of UNRWA employees’ complicity in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

The legislation formally came into effect on Jan. 30, 2025, prompting the immediate closure of the agency’s main offices in northeastern Jerusalem’s Ma’alot Dafna and Kafr Aqab neighborhoods.

Israel Police and municipal officials on Dec. 8, 2025, raided the shuttered Jerusalem offices of UNRWA.

Likud Herut U.K. called Tuesday’s action by the Israel Land Authority and law enforcement the “great UNRWA takedown!” in a Facebook post, adding that “today we’re demolishing the Jerusalem HQ of this discredited organization of Hamas enablers and collaborators.”

The Palestinian Authority’s official Wafa news agency reported that “Israeli bulldozers began demolishing structures inside the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) compound in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem on Tuesday morning.”

The Ramallah-based outlet wrote that “local sources reported that an Israeli army force, accompanied by bulldozers, stormed the agency’s compound after sealing off the surrounding streets and intensifying its military presence in the area, and proceeded to demolish structures inside the compound.”

©JNS