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The education of 800 students in occupied East Jerusalem is at risk as Israel moves to close their schools next week, a senior official with the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, said on Wednesday.

“It's a grave threat to the right of those children to education,” Roland Friedrich, Director of UNRWA Affairs for the West Bank, told UN News.

The development follows two Israeli laws that went into effect in late January which ban UNRWA from operating in its territory and prohibit Israeli authorities from having any contact with the agency.

UNRWA is the largest provider of healthcare, education and other services for nearly six million Palestine refugees across the Middle East, including in war-torn Gaza.

This week the International Court of Justice – the UN’s highest court - began hearings to examine Israel’s restrictions on the work of the UN and other international organizations in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Mr. Friedrich spoke about how the affected students are anxious over the prospect of being shut out of the classroom. He also underlined UNRWA’s commitment to continue to deliver in East Jerusalem “as long as we can.”

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Roland Friedrich: Roughly four weeks ago we received notifications from the Israeli Ministry of Education that the three schools we operate in Shu’fat refugee camp and another three schools we operate inside East Jerusalem shall be closed.

We have 800 students in these schools and these children have no adequate access to education beyond these schools. This is very concerning for the children, for their families, and it comes while the school year is still ongoing. So, this is unprecedented. It's a grave threat to the rights of those children to education and it's very concerning particularly because these closure orders are supposed to come into effect on 8 May, which is less than a week from now.

UN News: What other UNRWA programmes are at risk in the West Bank?

Roland Friedrich: I think we have to make a distinction between our work in occupied East Jerusalem, which according to the Israeli legislation is banned, and our work in the rest of the West Bank where, according to Israel, all our work is not banned.

In East Jerusalem we operate, in addition to the six schools with 800 children, two health centres – one in the Old City and another in Shu'fat refugee camp – with roughly 60,000 patients: vulnerable patients who have no adequate access to other health facilities, patients with non-communicable diseases, patients who have West Bank ID who have no access to alternative health facilities, and low-income patients.

We are also responsible for garbage collection in Shu’fat refugee camp, which is on the Palestinian side of the so-called separation barrier.

In addition to that, we also operate a vocational training centre in the north of Jerusalem, also on the Palestinian side of the barrier, with 350 trainees, all from the West Bank.

Our main headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem is in the Sheikh Jarah neighbourhood. We currently cannot operate from it because of continuing security threats: threats to the safety and security of our staff, ongoing attacks against the compound.

We again had an arson attack against these facilities three weeks ago, and continuous destruction of the fence, of cameras, of security infrastructure with high material damage.

So that’s a place that’s not safe for our staff to work despite the fact that it is a facility protected by the privileges and immunities of the United Nations.

When it comes to the West Bank overall, our operations there largely continue. That means our 90 schools, our 41 health centres, our microfinance installations, continue to operate.

But we do have a severe humanitarian crisis in the northern West Bank due to an ongoing Israeli security forces operation that started in late January and that has led to the displacement of more than 40,000 Palestinian refugees from three refugee camps.

UN News: What messages did you hear from students, parents and teachers during your latest visit to Shu’fat camp? How is the community coping with this uncertainty?

Roland Friedrich: There is anxiety among children. They are worried that they can’t continue the school year, which runs until the end of June. They’re worried that they will be separated from their friends.

They're worried that they will lose access to education. They are worried that they will have to be placed in education facilities that are maybe very far away or not available at all.

These are free schools, and we teach from grades one to nine. A lot of them are young girls who feel safe there in an appropriate learning environment that they will possibly lose.

Parents are also concerned. UNRWA has been delivering services in that refugee camp since the 1960s, predating Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, so there’s a history of UNRWA teaching in that place and an appreciation for the quality of the services we deliver.

Given the fact that all international UN staff have not received visas from the Israeli authorities since late January, it’s our local staff on the ground who are taking high risks in continuing to serve their communities.

UN News: In this challenging environment, what steps is UNRWA considering to support the continuity of its services in East Jerusalem?

Roland Friedrich: We’ve been very clear since these laws against UNRWA entered into effect on 29 January. We’ve been seeking to live up to our humanitarian commitment, to our mandate to continue to deliver these services to communities in East Jerusalem.

There have been legal efforts by Israeli civil society organizations before the courts against these laws and against these disclosure orders. Some of these proceedings are still pending.

We clearly call upon all actors to respect the obligations under international law, particularly to respect the inviolability of the premises of the United Nations in East Jerusalem.

We are providing these services based on a mandate by the General Assembly.

UNRWA clearly enjoys full privileges and immunities like any other UN agency, and our staff there are taking grave personal risks.

We are assessing the situation on a daily basis. Is it still safe for our staff to operate or not? As a matter of principle, we will be there as long as we can.

A Bolivian judge left this Wednesday, April 30, without effect the arrest warrant and the criminal investigation against former president Evo Morales for human trafficking, following a case related to the alleged abuse of a minor when he was president. After the ruling, Morales, who insists on being a presidential candidate, said that “justice has arrived”.

A judicial resolution signed by departmental judge Lilian Moreno annulled the arrest warrant against Bolivia's former governor Evo Morales. The former president, who has governed Bolivia for three terms, intends to run for the presidency in the national elections on August 17, despite the constitutional ruling that prohibits continuous or discontinuous reelection for more than one occasion.

In October, the Attorney General's Office had ordered the arrest of the 65-year-old indigenous leader, who since then has taken refuge in the coca-growing region of Chapare, where his followers set up a surveillance device to prevent his apprehension. After almost seven months, criminal judge Lilian Moreno annulled the arrest warrant, as well as “all procedural and investigative acts” against Morales, who governed Bolivia between 2006 and 2019.

“Any order of rebellion and judicial arrest warrant against” Morales is annulled, according to parts of the sentence disclosed by the defense and Bolivian media. The ruling is of first instance and can still be reviewed by a higher court.

Still, it is a relief for Morales.

"After a long time I feel that justice has arrived. The untiring struggle“ always bears ”good fruit," reacted the former president on the social network X.

In a recent interview with AFP, before learning of this ruling, Morales assured that he will break his confinement and go to La Paz in mid-May with his followers to register his candidacy for the August 17 general elections. "It is going to be a big caravan (...). On May 16 (May) we will register, then campaign, campaign", he said. He estimated that he does not believe that the electoral authority will prevent him from registering: “I am legally and constitutionally qualified”.

But that is another stumbling block for his reelection: a ruling of the constitutional court that does not allow more than two terms in office. Morales has already had three.

Wednesday's decision "is a judicial decision that is not final (...), it has to go through these review instances. However, this gives moral encouragement to Evo Morales," says Carlos Cordero, political scientist at the Bolivian Catholic University. According to the Prosecutor's Office, Morales had a relationship in 2015 with a 15-year-old teenager with whom he had a daughter a year later.

The politician was investigated in 2019 for this same case under the crime of statutoryremoved, which involves carnal access with a minor between 14 and 18 years old. In 2024, a new investigation was opened in the prosecutor's office of Tarija, in southern Bolivia, in which alleged trafficking was denounced.

The accusation alleges that Morales allegedly granted benefits to the parents in exchange for their daughter, who was part of the “youth guard” of the former governor's party at the time. Judge Moreno accepted the argument of the defense, according to which the prosecution could not investigate a process already closed under a new typification.

The former president accuses the government of Luis Arce, his former Minister of Economy, of plotting a judicial persecution against him with the aim of banning him from the August elections.

The same judge had annulled another order

This is not the first time that Judge Moreno crosses Evo Morales' judicial path. In October 2024 she also annulled a first arrest warrant that the Prosecutor's Office issued against the coca growers' leader for the same case. A higher instance later reversed its decision.

Manuel Baptista, president of the Bolivian Magistrates Council, warned that his act will be "reviewed" and that his institution would carry out the corresponding investigations. "If this judicial decision has been against the law, rest assured that this judicial official will be sanctioned in accordance with our regulations," Baptista told the press.

Morales' defense celebrated Judge Moreno's decision. "The former president can leave and move freely throughout the national territory (...), since his constitutional rights have just been restored," said Jorge Perez, the leader's lawyer, at a press conference.