The main United Nations agency helping the Palestinians, known as UNRWA, said on Thursday it had temporarily closed its headquarters in East Jerusalem for the safety of its staff after parts of the compound were set on fire following weeks of attacks.
“This afternoon, Israeli residents twice set fire to the perimeter of the UNRWA headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem,” said the agency’s head, Philippe Lazzarini. on social networks. The fire caused extensive damage to the compound’s exterior areas, Lazzarini said, but no workers from UNRWA or other U.N. agencies suffered injuries. He added that some of the workers “had to put out the fire themselves, as it took a while for the Israeli fire extinguishers and the police to appear.”
The attack put the lives of UN staff at “serious risk” and occurred two days later protesters threw stones to resort staff members, Lazzarini said.
Protests by Israeli settlers calling for the closure of UNRWA have continued for months. “On several occasions, Israeli extremists threatened our staff with weapons,” Lazzarini said in Thursday’s social media post. He added that under international law, it is Israel’s responsibility “as the occupying power to ensure that United Nations personnel and facilities are protected at all times.”
Many Israeli officials have called for years to dismantle UNRWA, and the agency lost funding from some donor countries earlier this year after Israel accused a dozen of its employees of being involved in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7. An independent review commissioned by the UN and published in April found that Israel had not provided any evidence to support its new allegations that many UNRWA staff were members of terrorist organizations.