OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (Palestine Foundation Information Center), The Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem Governorate warned of a new settlement plan being pushed by the Israeli occupation municipality to establish what it describes as an “educational complex” in the Kafr Aqab neighborhood, north of occupied Jerusalem, on land that has for decades included the vocational training college belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
The Governorate confirmed, in a statement on Friday, that the project falls within a series of Israeli measures aimed at undermining the work of UNRWA and its institutions in occupied Jerusalem, under the cover of educational and service projects.
It explained that the plan extends over an area of 82 dunums, and is marketed as a solution to the crisis of shortage in classrooms and educational facilities in Kafr Aqab, but its actual results will lead to the removal of the UNRWA vocational training college and ending its activity at the site.
The Governorate stressed that the danger of the project is not limited to its planning dimensions, but rather goes beyond that to targeting an existing UN agency that provides vital educational and vocational services to Palestinian refugees, considering that the educational pretext is used as a cover to weaken the presence of UNRWA and replace its institutions with others subject to the occupation authorities.
It added that the project comes in the context of continuous attempts to reshape the institutional and service conditions in occupied Jerusalem, which reflects negatively on the services provided to Palestinian refugees.
The Governorate pointed out that the occupation authorities, which bear responsibility for the chronic education crisis in Palestinian neighborhoods as a result of policies of discrimination and deliberate neglect over many years, seek today to exploit this crisis to justify the confiscation of lands, seizure of property, and undermining institutions that provide basic services to Palestinians, instead of addressing the real causes of the existing deficit in the educational sector.
