Israel launches operation to take over East Jerusalem UNRWA facility it says it controls

"Israeli officials announced on Tuesday the start of operations to dismantle a vocational training center run by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, in the East Jerusalem area of Kafr Aqab, near the Qalandiya refugee camp, on land Jerusalem says is controlled by the state.

Israel ‘will not allow an organization whose employees were involved in terrorism and in the October 7 massacre to operate on its territory, and will take action against it using every means at its disposal,’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Hebrew-language statement.

The prime minister said he had ordered the evacuation of UNWRA from the compound in line with a law passed in 2024 banning the UN agency from operating in Israeli territory.

The statement from Netanyahu came hours after National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir announced the start of the police operation.

‘Large forces of Israel Police are working together with the relevant authorities to implement the law and get UNRWA out of the area,’ Ben Gvir said in a statement. ‘An organization whose workers were involved in terrorism, and which served as a front for Hamas time after time, has no right to exist for even one more second, and has no place in Jerusalem and the State of Israel.’..."