BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 25. The Israeli military has raided facilities operated by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Qalandiya and Kufr Aqab amid increasing pressure on the organisation in the occupied West Bank.
According to journalist Sarah Abu Alrob, reporting from Ramallah, the targeted vocational facilities provide services to approximately 16,000 Palestinian refugees from across the occupied West Bank.
Abu Alrob told Al Jazeera that the raids should be viewed within the context of a broader Israeli campaign against UNRWA, which provides education, healthcare and social services to Palestinian refugees.
The latest operations follow an earlier Israeli raid on UNRWA’s headquarters in Jerusalem. According to the report, personnel were forcibly evacuated from the facility and parts of the building were subsequently demolished.
UNRWA has long played a central role in providing essential services to Palestinian refugees in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere in the region.
Abu Alrob suggested that the intensification of actions against the agency could also be linked to Israel’s parliamentary elections scheduled for October.
She noted that far-right Israeli government ministers have repeatedly called for UNRWA and other organisations to be dismantled.
The latest raids are likely to heighten concerns about the ability of UNRWA to continue providing essential services to thousands of Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank.
