Jerusalem Governorate has warned against a new Israeli municipal scheme aimed at establishing a so-called “educational complex” in the Kafr Aqab neighborhood, north of occupied Jerusalem.

The project threatens to displace a long-standing UNRWA vocational training college that has served generations of Palestinian refugees.

The governorate described the Israeli plan (No. 1421205) as yet another calculated step in the ongoing campaign to undermine and ultimately eliminate the presence of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in occupied Jerusalem, under the deceptive guise of addressing educational needs.

The proposed complex would span approximately 82 dunums of land currently occupied by UNRWA’s Vocational Training College. While Israeli authorities claim the project responds to a shortage of classrooms in Kafr Aqab, Palestinian officials assert that its real objective is the removal of the UNRWA institution and the termination of its vital educational and vocational activities for Palestinian refugees.

“The danger of this plan lies not only in its planning nature but also in its direct targeting of an existing UN institution that plays a crucial educational and vocational role for Palestinian refugees,” the governorate said.

The statement emphasized that replacing UNRWA facilities with institutions operating under Israeli occupation authority would significantly weaken the agency’s presence and essential services in Jerusalem.

Palestinian officials highlighted that the Israeli occupation, which bears primary responsibility for the chronic education crisis through decades of systematic discrimination, land confiscation, and deliberate neglect of Palestinian neighborhoods, is now cynically exploiting that very crisis to justify further seizures.

Experience has repeatedly shown that such Israeli “educational” or “public service” projects often serve as pretexts for demolitions, evictions, and control over Palestinian land, with little to no actual implementation benefiting local residents.

The governorate cited clear examples of this pattern:The so-called educational complex project in Jabal al-Mukabber, approved in 2017, has seen almost no progress even eight years later, with the majority of the project still unimplemented.

In Sheikh Jarrah, the Salehieh family was forcibly evicted from their home and commercial nursery in 2022 under the pretext of building educational institutions — yet no construction has begun years later.

In the town of Anata, a promised school project for Palestinian students was approved years ago, but Israeli authorities have refused to issue building permits or commence any work.

By pushing forward with the Kafr Aqab plan, the occupation continues its systematic efforts to erode Palestinian institutions, confiscate land, and weaken international humanitarian support for refugees, rather than addressing the root causes created by its own discriminatory policies.

The Jerusalem Governorate called on the international community to reject this latest attempt at land appropriation and to protect UNRWA’s mandate in occupied East Jerusalem, stressing that such moves constitute part of a broader strategy of demographic engineering and institutional dismantling in the Palestinian capital. (ILKHA)