Setting fire to UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem – “the latest attack on the United Nations”

The Secretary-General of the United Nations condemned in the strongest terms the actions of the Israeli authorities aimed at demolishing the UNRWA compound in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood. He urged the Government of Israel to immediately stop the demolition of the complex, calling for the return of the complex and other UNRWA headquarters to the United Nations without delay.

On January 20, Israeli forces stormed the UNRWA headquarters in East Jerusalem, where bulldozers entered the compound and began demolishing the buildings inside it, “under the watchful eyes of legislators and a member of the government.”

The agency’s Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, described the incident as an “unprecedented attack” on a United Nations agency and its buildings, and that it represented “a new level of frank and deliberate defiance of international law,” including the privileges and immunities of the United Nations, by the State of Israel.