Israel shuts Unrwa schools in occupied East Jerusalem

Israeli police forcibly closed schools operated by the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (Unrwa) in occupied East Jerusalem on Thursday morning, escalating tensions and sparking fears of attacks on students and teachers.

The Palestinian Ministry of Education condemned the closures as “a crime against education and is part of a systematic and ongoing assault on education in Jerusalem”.

Deploying forces around school premises, Israel issued evacuation and closure orders, actions the ministry decried as violating international laws, including the right to education and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The order was issued by the Israeli Ministry of Education, which claimed the schools were operating without licences.

This means around 800 children will receive no education, only weeks before the end of the school year. Instead, they will be set adrift in the East Jerusalem school system, which is already plagued by classroom shortages and funding cuts. 

Since the 1950s, Unrwa has run schools and medical clinics in East Jerusalem, which Israel seized during the Arab-Israeli war of 1967.