As another school year begins, about 800 Palestinian refugee students whose UNRWA schools Israel summarily closed in May 2025 were still reeling from the abrupt move, and not all have been able to find suitable alternatives.

Then on August 24, 2026, Israeli forces stormed the Kalandia Training Centre (KTC), the UNRWA-run vocational school in East Jerusalem, adjacent to the Qalandiya refugee camp, and seized the compound, after months of increasingly menacing moves against it (see Israel Advances Plan to Demolish Vo-tech School). In a statement, UNRWA Commissioner-General Christian Saunders said:

Commenting on the violent incursion, Roland Friedrich, director of UNRWA's affairs in the West Bank, said, “A large Israeli force arrived and forcibly entered the compound. We had 24 staff on site as we prepared for the new scholastic year. Israeli security personnel searched the site, opened the buildings, and temporarily held our staff at the site. They were later released. This is an unacceptable violation of the privileges and immunities of the United Nations.”2

During the raid, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir filmed himself sitting in the school principal’s chair and then posted the video to his X account with the caption “Making history. Banning UNRWA from Israel—anyone who supports terror will be expelled!”3 It is important to note that Israel illegally occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 and then annexed it in 1980. Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory, not part of Israel’s sovereign territory. Moreover, UNRWA properties are also protected and inviolable under international law.4

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement confirming that the raid and closure were ordered by the government.5

The closure was condemned by many parties, including the UN, the UN secretary-general, the Palestinian foreign ministry, and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI), among others.6

KTC was the last remaining educational facility operated by UNRWA in East Jerusalem after Israel shut down UNRWA’s other six schools—which had served approximately 800 students—in May 2025 (see Israel Closes All UNRWA Schools in East Jerusalem). KTC had nearly 350 enrolled male students at the time of its closure. So, all in all, about 1,150 students, all Palestinian refugees, have been deprived of their educational facilities by the state through these actions.

In April 2026, the Jerusalem Municipality advanced Plan 101-1421205—Educational Complex-Kufr ‘Aqab—to build public institutions (supposedly schools) in the training center’s place. To date, however, the training center is still standing. NGOs and Palestinian governmental authorities are skeptical that this plan will come to fruition and instead emphasize that Israel has used the construction of schools as a pretext to expropriate Palestinian land.7

“The Kalandia Training Centre is not merely a building. It is UNRWA’s oldest vocational training centre and has served Palestine Refugees for more than seven decades,” UNRWA said in a statement.8

The institution opened in 1953 and has continuously provided free vocational training to hundreds of Palestinian male refugees—many from underprivileged socioeconomic backgrounds—every year.9 It was the only institution providing Palestinian refugees with access to learning vocational trades and skills. It offered 16 vocational training programs across three technical divisions:

• Electrical and information technology

• Automotive mechanics

• Metals and construction

“There is no alternative facility, because these are workshops that have been in place for many, many years,” Friedrich told Jerusalem Story before the school’s closure. “And if that thing is closed, the kids are out of school, and generations of students have been trained there, so that . . . also has a negative impact on the future of the youth and just leads to more despair.”

The illegal seizure of the KTC comes nearly two years after Israel illegally banned UNRWA on territory over which it considers itself sovereign (including East Jerusalem; see Is There a Legal Basis for Israel’s UNRWA Ban?).

With the vocational college closed, Friedrich hopes the international community will act to reverse Israel’s unlawful confiscation. “What we hope is that Member States take the responsibility to exercise pressure, so that we can resume our work at this training centre,” Friedrich said. “The key thing is that we can go back to that centre, operate it, and serve the people that we are mandated to serve by the General Assembly.”10

The below video by UNRWA shows the training center in better days, when school was in session.