United Nations Reviews Israeli Plan for Military Complex on Former UNRWA Site

The United Nations is reviewing Israel's plan to build a military complex on the former headquarters of the UN relief agency for Palestinians in east Jerusalem. An official said Tuesday that the matter is currently under consideration at the level of the legal council, the highest legal authority of the United Nations in New York.

Israel announced over the weekend that it had approved construction of a defense ministry complex at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency compound in Sheikh Jarrah, including a museum and enlistment office.

N. property and that the plan represents at minimum a breach of the 1946 UN Convention on privileges and immunities. Israel bulldozed part of the UNRWA compound in January. 5 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as 3 million refugees in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said the plan is a decision of sovereignty, Zionism and security. He stated that institutions will be established to strengthen Jerusalem, the Israeli army, and the State of Israel in a place where an organization that became part of the terror and incitement mechanism against Israel operated.

The decision was announced on Jerusalem Day, which marks Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel considers the entire city its capital, while the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state.

Boucly said the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains absolutely dire. UNRWA international staff have been barred by Israel from entering Gaza, though about 10,000 local staff continue to work there. She noted that despite a tenuous ceasefire, insufficient aid is coming in and reconstruction is not starting fast enough.

In Syria, Boucly reported that some 60,000 people had returned to the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp as of April, of which 80 percent are Palestinian refugees.