Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be in an open war with the United Nations. Along with targeting UN aid workers in Gaza and peacekeepers in Lebanon, Tel Aviv is now seizing the headquarters of the UN aid agency for Palestinians.
Dan Iloz, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud, told Israel Hayom that the Israel Land Authority approved the confiscation of the site. He said the “expropriation of land in Jerusalem is an important step, but not enough.” Iloz went on to call UNRWA “a hotbed for terrorism under a humanitarian guise.”
The building is located in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Plans are to replace it with 1,500 settlement units.
The move was denounced by Saudi Arabia. A statement from the Foreign Ministry expressed the Kingdom’s “condemnation and denunciation in the strongest terms the Israeli occupation authorities’ decision to seize the land on which the UNRWA headquarters is located in occupied Jerusalem and turn it into a settlement outpost.”
The move to seize the UNRWA site will interfere with Netanyahu’s state goal of normalizing ties with Riyadh in order to create a trade route from India to the Mediterranean Sea through Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Netanyahu has had an increasingly confrontational relationship with the UN. Last month, in a speech to the UN General Assembly, he referred to the body as a swamp of anti-Semitic bile. In recent days, Israeli troops have targeted the positions of UN Peacekeepers deployed to Lebanon and meant to prevent fighting between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hezbollah.
On Sunday, Israeli tanks breached a UN base and fired gas at the Peacekeepers. The IDF has also targeted UNRWA facilities and staff during its year-long onslaught in the Gaza Strip.
