Israeli Forces Storm UNRWA Training Center in East Jerusalem, Lower UN Flag Under 2024 Ban Law

Israeli forces stormed the Qalandiya Training Centre, an UNRWA facility straddling the boundary between occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, on Tuesday. The operation was led by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. The UN flag was lowered over the complex, according to UNRWA.

Israeli authorities justified the raid under legislation passed by the Knesset in October 2024 that banned UNRWA from operating on Israeli-controlled territory and severed official contact between Israeli agencies and the UN body. UNRWA says it received no advance notice.

"UNRWA was not informed [in advance] of any action by the Israeli government against the UNRWA institute and complex in Qalandiya," UNRWA media adviser Adnan Abu Hasna told Al Jazeera. He called the takeover "a dangerous escalation against international humanitarian law, against UN laws and against the mandate granted to UNRWA by the UN General Assembly."

Abu Hasna said the raid breaks a bilateral agreement signed between UNRWA and Israel on June 14, 1967, which was meant to guarantee protection and immunity for the agency's facilities and staff. "All of this has ended now under the weight of escalating Israeli measures," he said.

Qatar issued sharp condemnation of the raid, warning of what it described as a systematic effort to strip millions of Palestinians of essential services, according to Al Jazeera.

The land beneath the raid

The seizure sits beside the historic Qalandiya Airport, a site Israeli affairs expert Adel Shadid told Al Jazeera is central to a longer-term plan. He said Israeli authorities aim to take control of the airport to build a settlement of more than 9,000 units alongside a Jewish heritage center, erasing what he called the site's Jordanian-era landmarks. Combined with the training center's grounds, Shadid said, control of the two areas would complete the pillars of a "Greater Jerusalem" project that he estimated could carve out 12 to 13 percent of the West Bank's total area and place more than 800 square kilometers under municipal control. These figures are Shadid's analysis and have not been independently verified against Israeli planning documents.

Retired Lebanese Brigadier General Elias Hanna told Al Jazeera the Qalandiya area's value lies in severing Palestinian geographic continuity. "The control over the area can affect the movement and connection between the two cities," he said, referring to Jerusalem and Ramallah.

A financial siege alongside the raids

UNRWA's operational crisis did not begin with this raid. Abu Hasna said the agency faces a large budget deficit after the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers cut $360 million, roughly 30 percent of UNRWA's annual budget. The agency runs schools, health clinics, social services and microfinance programs for Palestinian refugees across the region.

Israeli affairs specialist Anas Abu Arqoub described a deepening fusion of state forces and armed settlers on the ground, calling it "a division of roles accompanied by a state of complete integration." His fuller characterization of settler organization, including a reported reference to the Institute for National Security Studies, was not fully documented in available reporting.

The October 2024 ban law, the 1967 agreement's collapse, and the U.S. funding cuts together form the backdrop against which Tuesday's raid took place, part of a pattern UNRWA and Qatar describe as escalating pressure on the agency's presence in occupied territory.