“I wish they had waited until we graduated from school instead of scattering us,” said Fadia Ibrahim, 14, a student at a school for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Shu‘fat refugee camp, located in northern Jerusalem. “All my friends are here at school, where we spend more time than at home, so why do they want us to be separated? Why are we forbidden from staying at our school in our camp? It’s difficult to start over at another school,” she added.1

In her brief remarks, Ibrahim expressed the feelings of dozens of students who now face an uncertain future after Israeli authorities forcibly entered and presented closure orders issued by the Israeli Ministry of Education to the six UNRWA-run schools in East Jerusalem (see Table 1), including three in Shu‘fat refugee camp, on April 8, 2025.

The orders are scheduled to go into effect in 30 days, in implementation of a Knesset decision passed in October 2024 that banned UNRWA activities within Israel, as well as a law prohibiting contact with the agency (see As UNRWA Shutters Its Jerusalem Office under Intensifying Israeli Pressure, Palestinians Reflect on UNRWA’s Role).

Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, stated on X that “Some 800 boys & girls are directly impacted by these closure orders and are likely to miss finishing their school year.”3

Jerusalem Story visited Shu‘fat refugee camp, where three of the six schools are located, to see how families are faring.

Parents at the Shu‘fat refugee camp were directed to transfer their children to schools affiliated with the Jerusalem municipality. While the municipality published a list of schools where students can supposedly register, they are located outside of the camp, which will require a long commute, especially since students must pass through a major military checkpoint that controls all entrance to and exit from the camp, even though most residents hold Israeli permanent-resident IDs and should be able to freely move in their own city (see Precarious Status).4

One parent, who requested anonymity, said, “The closure of these schools is catastrophic for us. We fear that our children will be exposed to violence as they pass through this provocative Israeli checkpoint.”5 The checkpoint is generally heavily manned by Israeli forces and the camp itself is a frequent site of army raids and operations.

According to UNRWA, in 2023, Shu‘fat camp was subject to the second-highest number of Israeli army operations among all West Bank camps, and the number of operations increased significantly from October 2023 onwards. But even before that, the camp was a flashpoint.6

Shu‘fat camp residents are well aware of the stories of young men from the camp who were killed by Israeli police. Many of those killed were apparently shot dead by Israelis for the most trivial of reasons. The police have yet to investigate these incidents or make any announcement as to why those young Shu‘fat camp residents were killed.7

One father hopes his son will be able to receive a better education at the municipality school. He shared that the UNRWA-run school his son has been attending lacks basic facilities, such as sports fields, gyms, and modern educational tools. The father believes that the Israeli municipal-funded schools offer more modern facilities, educational and recreational tools, and advanced computer-based learning tools.8

Hamdi Diab, a coordinator for a Palestinian activists’ group in the camp, told Jerusalem Story that heavily armed Israeli forces, accompanied by teams from the Ministry of Education, raided the three UNRWA schools in the camp on April 8 and issued orders to close them within 30 days. These schools include one elementary school for boys and two for girls.9 As of December 2024, these schools served 537 students (354 girls and 183 boys).10 Unlike in other refugee camps in the West Bank, which only go up to ninth grade, the schools in Shu‘fat, the only camp within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, continue to tenth grade due to the risk that students could lose their legal status as permanent residents of Jerusalem if they attend tenth grade elsewhere in the West Bank.11 All three schools have libraries and computer and science laboratories. 12

Dimitri Diliani, spokesperson for Fatah’s Reformist Democratic Reform Faction, told Jerusalem Story that he considers the Israeli authorities’ decision to close UNRWA schools in Jerusalem a “colonial crime targeting the heart of Palestinian national identity.”13

Its implications extend beyond the educational framework to the political, social, and cultural spheres. Diliani explained that UNRWA schools have long served as educational and social incubators deeply embedded in the national conscience. They have provided an academic foundation that has reinforced Palestinian people’s history, heritage, society, and identity in the face of Israel’s relentless attempts to erase them.

“This decision is the dangerous culmination of accumulated Israeli policies aimed at ending UNRWA’s international role and removing the refugee issue from the political equation by undermining its effective institutions and restricting its functions,” Diliani added.

In February 2024, Israeli authorities, again accompanied by Ministry of Education personnel, raided three UNRWA schools in Jerusalem (in Wadi al-Joz, Silwan, and Sur Bahir), as well as the Kalandiya Vocational Training Centre. They also ordered their closure at that time. The decision went into effect at the end of last January. However, it was not enforced on the ground and, thus, UNRWA organizations have continued to work based on their UN General Assembly mandate.

According to reports issued by the Jerusalem Municipality and local and international human rights organizations, Palestinians in East Jerusalem face a severe shortage of classrooms. Ir Amim, an Israeli nonprofit monitoring Jerusalem, claims that East Jerusalem has a shortage of 2,477 classrooms.14 One of the reasons for this shortage is due to the lack of land for school construction in Jerusalem. Ziad Shamali, head of the Parents’ Union Committee in East Jerusalem explained that the lack of space has always been a major issue.

Additionally, the Israeli Separation Wall between the city and the rest of the occupied West Bank hinders Palestinians’ access to the city. “It’s crowded, and the Israeli government doesn’t grant permits to anyone, whether it’s the Palestinian Authority or the Islamic Waqf, to build a school in Jerusalem,” he said.15 “They don’t want to develop the education sector; they want Palestinians to be uneducated. People can’t find homes to live in, so how do you expect them to find schools?” he added. According to data compiled by Ir Amim through Freedom of Information requests, the dropout rates for Palestinian Jerusalemite students are very high. For example, in 2021–22, four percent of the boys and three percent of girls in grades one to eleven dropped out.16

Amid the uncertainty in Jerusalem and the lack of concerted action to save students who will face an uncertain fate if alternatives are not found, Palestinian leaders in Jerusalem are extremely worried about the situation on the ground.

Ziad Hammouri, head of the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights and a prominent Jerusalem leader, acknowledged that there is an immense lack of leadership in Jerusalem to confront Israeli institutions’ widespread and coordinated efforts imposing Jewish sovereignty and supremacy on Palestinians in the city as elsewhere across the country. “The issue of education is a worrying one, and we know there is a weakness in the [Palestinian] national movement in Jerusalem in particular, which deepens the state of uncertainty experienced by the [Palestinian] Jerusalemite community,” he said.17

Palestinians in Jerusalem wonder whether UNRWA has planned ways to protect its schools and students, or whether it will simply surrender to the status quo. They also question if UNRWA was working to completely withdraw from Jerusalem and cease providing health, education, and livelihood services to Palestinian refugees there. This question requires a clear answer from the head of UNRWA, as this would implicate the fate of hundreds of students from Jerusalem and thousands of families who receive social and health services from the international organization.

In his statement on April 8, 2025, which was later reposted on UNRWA’s Newsroom as an official UNRWA statement, Lazzarini said that “UNRWA schools are protected by the privileges & immunities of the United Nations. Today’s unauthorised entries & issuance of closure orders are a violation of these protections + represent a revocation of Israel’s obligations under international law.”18

Lazzarini concluded his comment on X by saying: “UNRWA is committed to stay & deliver education and other basic services to Palestine Refugees in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in accordance with the General Assembly resolution mandated to the Agency.”19