“Allowing this unprecedented destruction is the latest attack on the UN in the ongoing attempt to dismantle the status of Palestinian refugees in the occupied Palestinian territory and erase their history,” Lazzarini said.
In a brief statement, the senior UN official added that “there are no limits to the challenge to the United Nations” and international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Last Tuesday’s decision by Israeli authorities to send bulldozers to the Sheikh Jarrah compound, where they demolished UNRWA structures, drew swift condemnation from senior UN officials, including Secretary-General António Guterres and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.
Before that dramatic event, on 14 January, Israeli forces entered an UNRWA health center in East Jerusalem and ordered its closure. The agency reported that its workers were “terrified” and that the deteriorating situation was a direct result of legislation passed by the Israeli parliament in December, intensifying existing anti-UNRWA laws adopted in 2024.
UNRWA facilities have also been targeted by arsonists amid a “large-scale disinformation campaign” against it by Israel, the agency’s Commissioner General has previously maintained.
This was despite a ruling last October by the UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice, which reaffirmed that Israel was obliged to “facilitate UNRWA operations, not hinder or impede them. The court also highlighted that Israel has no jurisdiction over East Jerusalem,” Lazzarini noted.