The commissioner general of the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, denounced that Israeli police, accompanied by municipal employees, “called in their forces” this month at the organization’s headquarters in East Jerusalem and replaced the UN flag with that of Israel.
“This action represents a blatant failure to respect Israel’s obligation, as a member state of the United Nations, to protect and respect the inviolability of UN facilities,” denounced Lazzarini in his account on the social network X.
According to the message, Israeli forces entered the UNRWA compound with police motorcycles and other vehicles, and cut off all communications, while furniture, computer equipment and other property were left in danger.
Earlier this year, the Israeli Parliament banned UNRWA activities in Israel, alleging a suspected link between the UN agency’s employees and the Islamist group Hamas.
The International Court of Justice has determined that Israel has not substantiated its allegations that a significant portion of UNRWA employees are members of Hamas, nor demonstrated the humanitarian agency’s alleged lack of neutrality as a whole.
In his message, Lazzarini called Israel’s accusations against UNRWA a “large-scale disinformation campaign,” which followed “months of harassment” against its workers with “arson attacks in 2024, demonstrations of hatred and intimidation” against the agency, which forced it to dislodge the compound from East Jerusalem.
“Whatever measures are adopted at the national level, the complex maintains its status as a UN headquarters, safe from any type of interference,” he says, which supports the fact that Israel is part of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, which declares its facilities inviolable.
“There cannot be exceptions. Allowing this represents a new challenge to international law, which constitutes a dangerous precedent in any other place in the world where the UN is present,” concludes Lazzarini.
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