With the U.N. Relief and Works Agency vacating its Jerusalem compound under Israeli laws that went into effect on Thursday, Eli Beer, founder and president of United Hatzalah, saw an opportunity for the Israeli emergency medical services organization.
Beer penned a letter to António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, on Thursday asking the global body to let Hatzalah use the empty compound as a training facility.
Hatzalah proposes to use the facility as “a training center for emergency medical technicians and as a logistics hub for humanitarian aid, in line with the U.N.’s humanitarian principles,” Beer wrote.
Beer added that Hatzalah’s access to the facility “would greatly benefit all residents in the region, fostering peace and cooperation.” (JNS sought comment from the United Nations.)
“What a great idea,” wrote David Friedman, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, of converting the UNRWA site “from a place destroying lives to one saving lives.”
Friedman tagged Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.N. ambassador, on the post and suggested that she would like the plan. Beer responded that he would like to have Friedman and Stefanik on hand to dedicate the new Hatzalah campus.
Such an arrangement would “help all the people of Jerusalem, the Jews, Muslims and Christians, who need better and faster medical response, especially in East Jerusalem,” Beer wrote. “This could save thousands of lives every year.”
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, also wrote that Beer’s was a “great idea.”
“The United Nations should hand over its now defunct UNRWA compound in Jerusalem to the incredible and true humanitarian organization United Hatzalah, whose Jewish and Arab emergency medics save lives every day,” Neuer wrote.
Two laws, which the Knesset passed in October, went into effect on Thursday, banning UNRWA from operating in Israel and barring Israeli officials from communicating with the U.N. agency.
The United Nations said on Thursday that its staff had vacated the agency’s field office in Jerusalem’s Ma’alot Dafna neighborhood and that only a local security company remained. International staff went to Jordan. UNRWA clinics and schools in Jerusalem continue to operate with local staff, the United Nations said.
Israel has accused UNRWA publicly of having direct ties to Gazan terror groups and has documented evidence of U.N. agency staffers participating directly in the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
