The secret mission to rescue the UN’s vital Palestinian refugee archive- Millions of documents chronicling generations of trauma saved from Gaza and East Jerusalem in 10-month Unrwa operation

Refugees in 1948 fleeing a village in what is now Galilee, northern Israel. Photograph: Reuters

Jason Burke International security correspondent

Thu 14 May 2026

East Jerusalem to Amman should have been an easy trip: a short drive down to the Dead Sea, across the border checkpoint and swiftly on to the Jordanian capital.

But in the early summer of 2024, the distance appeared an almost insurmountable obstacle to humanitarian workers from Unrwa (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), as they sought to safeguard huge quantities of archival documents vitally important to decades of recent Palestinian history.

A 10-month operation to save the archives kept by Unrwa in Gaza and East Jerusalem was reaching its final stages. The effort had been highly sensitive and sometimes dangerous. It had already involved dozens of Unrwa staff in at least four different countries, risky trips to rescue documents under bombardment, officials carefully carrying unmarked envelopes into Egypt, and precious boxes airlifted to safety in military planes.

But now time was running out. Unrwa’s sprawling compound in East Jerusalem had become the focus of a concerted Israeli effort to expel the agency, and a target of rightwing groups.

The significance of the Unrwa archives, much of which detailed Palestinians’ experiences as they fled or were forced from their homes during the wars that led to the foundation of Israel in 1948, was clear.

“Their destruction would have been catastrophic … If there is ever a just and durable solution to this conflict, then this is the only evidence people can use to show there were once Palestinians living in a particular place,” said Roger Hearn, a senior Unrwa official who oversaw the operation.

Such clandestine efforts were never supposed to be the task of Unrwa, which was founded in 1949 to provide healthcare, food and education to about 750,000 Palestinian refugees... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/14/secret-mission-palestinian-refugee-archive-unrwa-israel  

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