Cnn
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Israeli forces have descended in six United Nations schools in East Jerusalem, ordering them to close within 30 days, according to UNRWA, the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees and the Israeli Ministry of Education.
About 800 students will be directly affected by the closing orders and may not be able to finish the school year, said Commissioner General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, on social networks. The schools led by the agency serve the Palestinians in the regions occupied by Israel, notably Jerusalem-Est, the West Bank and Gaza.
“UNRWA schools are protected by United Nations privileges and immunities,” said Lazzarini. “The unauthorized entries today and the issuance of closure orders constitute a violation of these protections.”
The Ministry of Israel for Education said in a statement that parents were invited to record their students in other schools. “The professional staff of the Ministry of Education continues to support the educational framework of each student.”
In October, the Parliament of Israel adopted a law prohibiting UNRWA of activity in Israel and revoking the 1967 Treaty which enabled the agency to carry out its mission.
Yulia Malinovsky, member of the Israeli Parliament who sponsored the bill to prohibit UNRWA, confirmed closing orders. Schools will have until May 8, she said.
“We are also working very hard to close water and electricity to all UNRWA installations (in the areas occupied by Israel),” said Malinovsky. “We do our best to implement UNRWA invoices entirely in all institutions and in all aspects.”
Israel has long sought to dismantle the United Nations agency, arguing that some of its employees are members of Hamas and that the UNRWA’s education system teaches students to hate Israel.
An undisclosed investigation revealed that examples in anti-Israeli biases were “marginal” but nevertheless constituted “a serious violation of neutrality”.
Israeli defense forces (FDI) alleged that a handful of 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza participated in the October 7 massacre. UNRWA has denied these accusations several times, saying that there is “absolutely no reason for a general description of” the institution as a whole “” completely infiltrated “.
UNRWA was founded by the United Nations a year after the creation of Israel in 1948 which led to the movement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their houses in a known event of Palestinians like the “Nakba” (disaster).
The agency, which started by helping around 750,000 Palestinian refugees in 1950, now serves some 5.9 million across the Middle East, many of which live in refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria.
In the Gaza Strip, which has been ravaged by a devastating Israeli war for over a year, UNRWA has served some 1.7 million Palestinian refugees. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it helps around 871,500 refugees.
On Wednesday, an Israeli air strike from Gaza City killed at least 23 Palestinians, including eight children, according to the Civil Defense of Gaza, because the Israeli army said it was aimed at a Hamas superior activist.
The strike destroyed a four-story residential building in the Al-Shujaiya district of Gaza City and injured at least 60 others, the civil defense said. More than 30 Palestinians are also missing under the rubble, said the organization, including 19 members of a family.
“I was heading to fill the water and, when I got back, all of a sudden, an entire block was targeted with women and children,” said Hatem Jundyeh, who lives nearby. “What have we done? Are we from Hamas so they hit us? ”
In the aftermath of the strike, the rescue teams searched under the debris for any sign of life. A group pulled the young boy’s body from the rubble, his soft body and his bloody face. Another nearby crew tried to hammer through huge concrete slabs destroyed in a race to save anyone who could still be trapped.
“What tools do we have? The whole world fights us,” said a volunteer for civil defense. “We have recovered a body from a child, but next to him there – his brothers, his parents and his brothers and sisters. The whole world looks with silence. ”
Ambulances quickly filled injured in precipitation for medical treatment. In the hospital, the Palestinians killed in the strike were wrapped in white rags or carpets.
Dr. Fadel Naim, director of Baptist al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, said on social networks that “the most painful cases I witnessed during this war” was a 20-year-old woman who had the two breasts and an arm amputated. “What crime has she committed to deserving such a brutal distinction and the bursting of her future?” Naim asked.
Israeli defense forces (FDI) said they had struck a “superior Hamas” terrorist who had planned and conducted attacks from northern Gaza. “Before the strike, numerous measures were taken to alleviate damage to civilians, including the use of specific weapons, air surveillance and additional information,” the FDI said in a statement after the strike. The FDI has not identified the target of the strike.
The strike in the north of Gaza intervenes as the IDF expands its operations to Rafah in the southern part of the coastal enclave, as a source familiar with the question indicates that CNN Israel plans to hold a large part of Gaza for an “indefinite” period.
Last week, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced a major expansion of the military operation in Gaza involving the seizure of large areas of land that would be “incorporated into Israeli security zones”.
The operation would also involve “a large -scale evacuation of the Gaza population in combat areas,” said its press release without specifying the details. Katz said the military operation would extend to “crush and erase the terrorist and terrorist infrastructure area, while entering large areas that will be incorporated into the Israel security zone”.
