Israel’s ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) operations in east Jerusalem is due to take effect on January 31, but both the UNRWA and Israeli officials are still unclear about what will actually happen in practice, particularly regarding education services, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
According to a UNRWA official, “We have no visibility on how the law would be implemented.”
The uncertainty also revolves around the fact that the High Court of Justice has yet to rule on a request for an injunction by a number of NGOs to delay the bill’s implementation. The court will rule on the injunction on January 27, just three days before the ban is set to take effect, the official said.
“We have 750 children in school in east Jerusalem – partway through their school year. We also provide 80,000 health consultations annually in east Jerusalem for 70,000 vulnerable people with no access to anything else,” the official added.
The UNRWA provides education, health, and sanitation services in east Jerusalem, mainly in neighborhoods that lay beyond the separation barrier, chiefly among them the Shuafat refugee camp.
Inside the camps
According to the Jerusalem Municipality, some 600 students study at the camp’s three schools run by the UNRWA. Another 300 students attend three other schools – one in Wadi Joz, one in Silwan, and one in Sur Bahir – run by neighborhoods within the barrier.
In addition, the UNRWA runs two healthcare facilities, primarily in areas beyond the barrier.The Jerusalem Ministry has been responsible for coordinating with other government ministries in preparation for providing services in east Jerusalem in place of the ones provided by the UNRWA.
According to Leeron Iflah, the Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage of Israel Office’s deputy director-general, the immediate solution for the students from the Shuafat refugee camp will be temporary educational frameworks in a number of locations within the separation barrier.
The medium-term solution will be to set up a series of caravans at the entrance to the camp, and the long-term solution will be a large, permanent building within the camp that will include a school and other institutions.
Iflah said that approximately NIS 20 million had recently been approved to begin planning the permanent building.
However, it is still unclear whether or not these solutions, which are being carried out by the Jerusalem Municipality, will actually be implemented since they depend on cooperation from the residents. According to Iflah, the municipality has made strides in developing productive services in east Jerusalem as part of the previous government’s five-year plan – Decision Law 3790 – which was taken in 2018.
These, however, were primarily directed at residents within the barrier and did not include the Shuafat refugee camp.
As for the temporary arrangements, they will cost NIS 23m., which will come out of budgets allocated as part of government Decision Law 880 from August 2023, which includes a five-year plan to develop east Jerusalem.
An additional NIS 4m. will go toward increasing the number of doctors and nurses at existing medical facilities within the separation barrier, Iflah said. These will provide free infant care, including an expanded vaccination package, she added.
Iflah said that the Health Ministry had also issued a tender to the International Red Cross to provide health services within the camp once the UNRWA ban came into effect.
The law to stop the UNRWA’s operations in east Jerusalem was published on October 30. It said that the ban would come into effect in three months.
A second law was passed to stop Israeli cooperation with the UNRWA in all other regions, including Gaza and the West Bank.
These rules were proposed after information emerged that some UNRWA employees had participated in the October 7 Hamas massacre and as a result of claims that the UNRWA in Gaza had been infiltrated by Hamas.