RAMALLAH, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Palestine on Thursday slammed the Israeli plan to replace the schools of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in East Jerusalem with those run by its education ministry.
The Israeli plan to replace UNRWA-run schools is "an extension of the Israeli authorities' campaign of aggression against Palestinian rights and roots in the city (East Jerusalem)," said Hanan Ashrawi, an executive committee member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, in a statement.
"It is also an assault on multilateral institutions and international law," the statement noted.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs slammed the Israeli plan in Jerusalem as "part of Israel's war on the right of return and part of the Israeli plans to Judaize the Palestinian city."
The Israeli measure is a "new step toward imposing the Israeli curriculum on Palestinians," the ministry said in a statement, referring to Israeli incitement against Palestinians through textbooks.
On Tuesday night, the Jerusalem Municipal Council approved a plan to construct an educational campus by the Israeli education ministry near the city's Arab Shuafatand Anata neighborhoods to replace the schools established and run by the UNRWA.
The campus, at a cost of more than 2 million U.S. dollars, will be located in an area outside the pre-1967 border but within Jerusalem's municipal borders.
The UNRWA was created in December 1949 to support the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. The UN agency provides basic services and protection to some 5.4 million Palestinian refugees registered under it.
