Israeli authorities could close a training center for hundreds of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank within days, jeopardizing the students’ education, the UN agency for Palestine refugees said on Friday.
The Kalandia training center, which teaches 350 young students from across the West Bank skills such as plumbing and vehicle maintenance, could be closed because the land it sits on is at risk of expropriation by Israeli authorities, UNRWA said.
– If the center were to be forced to close – and we fear that this could happen within a few days – there is no educational alternative for these students. So you’re depriving a large group of Palestinian refugees of economic opportunities,” Jonathan Fowler, a UNRWA spokesman, told reporters in Geneva, speaking via video link from Amman, Jordan.
– The right to education would be attacked there. The international community must wake up – he added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
For decades, UNRWA has functioned as the main international agency concerned with the welfare of millions of Palestinian descendants of those who fled or were driven from their homes during the war over the establishment of Israel.
Israel accuses UNRWA of bias, and the Israeli parliament passed a law in October 2024 banning the agency from operating in the country and barring officials from contacting it.
On Tuesday, Israel demolished structures inside the agency’s compound in East Jerusalem, a site it captured last year. Agency head Philippe Lazzarini said the demolition was the latest in a series of Israeli actions against UNRWA, including an attack on a medical clinic this month and a plan to cut off electricity and water supplies to UNRWA facilities in the coming weeks.
(Vijesti.ba / FENA)
