Israeli police forces ordered a 30-day closure of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) al-Zawiya health center, located in the Indian Corner of Jerusalem’s Old City (Zawiyat al-Hindiyya). For decades, the health center has been supported by United Nations (UN) member states. One day earlier, the Jerusalem District Electricity Company, which provides electricity to East Jerusalem and many of its suburbs, notified al-Zawiya clinic and nine other UNRWA facilities that it is mandated by law to no longer provide electricity services to the outlined locations, including four schools across Shu‘fat refugee camp, Sur Bahir, and Wadi Hilweh in Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood. The schools had previously been ordered to close in May 2025 (see Israel Closes All UNRWA Schools in East Jerusalem).

In the end of December 2025, the Israeli Knesset passed new anti-UNRWA legislation which “cuts off water, electricity, fuel, and communications from UNRWA and grants the government of Israel authority to expropriate UN properties in East Jerusalem, including UNRWA’s headquarters and its main vocational training center.”1

This new legislation is an amendment to a previous one in October 2024 outlawing UNRWA from territory over which Israel considers itself sovereign. Since then, Israel has ordered the closure of UNRWA schools that provide education to more than 800 students (see Palestinian Students Face Uncertainty as Israel Orders Closure of Six UNRWA Schools) although under international law, East Jerusalem is recognized as illegally occupied territory, meaning it does not fall under Israeli sovereignty according to international law. Therefore, the UN should enjoy immunity and protection while providing basic services to Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem.

Section three of Article II of the Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations states: “The premises of the United Nations shall be inviolable. The property and assets of the United Nations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation and any other form of interference, whether by executive, administrative, judicial or legislative action.”2 Additionally, Article 104 of the Charter of the United Nations grants the UN in a member’s territory the “legal capacity as may be necessary for the exercise of its functions and the fulfilment of its purposes.”3

UNRWA’s al-Zawiya health center provides primary health services to 30,000 Palestinians in the Old City of Jerusalem. Another health-care facility in Shu‘fat refugee camp, which provides care to thousands of Palestinians, is also being severed from electrical and water services. Amir Chalabi, the police chief superintendent of the Old City, declares in the closure order that he “authorizes police units to use brute force to execute this order and whomever does not comply with the order will be imprisoned for two years.”4

It is unsurprising that an unassuming UNRWA health center is intimidated with such violence and forced into, perhaps, succumbing to Israel’s violations of international agreements, and eventually into completely halting its activity.

While Israel publicly rationalizes its anti-UNRWA moves by claiming the agency is a collaborator of Hamas, a previous UNRWA spokesperson, Chris Gunness, described the agency as “the best partner for peace Israel ever had.”5 It has provided education, health care, medications, sanitation, and social services to those abandoned or neglected by the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality (see As UNRWA Shutters Its Jerusalem Office under Intensifying Israeli Pressure, Palestinians Reflect on UNRWA’s Role).