Israeli forces assulted six United Nations schools in East Jerusalem, ordering them to close within 30 days, according to UNRWA, the UN agency for the Palestinian refugees, and the Israeli Ministry of Education.

Approximately 800 students will be directly impacted by the closure orders and may not be able to finish the school year, UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said on social media.

Schools run by the agency serve Palestinians in areas occupied by Israel, including East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

“UNRWA schools are protected by the privileges and immunities of the United Nations,” Lazzarini said. “Today’s unauthorized entries and issuance of closure orders are a violation of these protections.”

Israel’s Ministry of Education said in a statement that parents were directed to register their students at other schools. “The professional staff at the Ministry of Education continue to support the educational framework for each student.”

In October, Israel’s parliament passed a law banning UNRWA from activity within Israel and revoking the 1967 treaty that allowed the agency to carry out its mission.

Yulia Malinovsky, a member of the Israeli parliament who sponsored the bill to ban UNRWA, confirmed the closure orders. The schools will have until May 8, she said.

Israel has long sought to dismantle the UN agency, arguing that some of its employees are members of Hamas and that UNRWA’s education system teaches students to hate Israel.

A UN-commissioned inquiry found that examples in textbooks of anti-Israel bias were “marginal” but nonetheless constituted “a grave violation of neutrality.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have alleged that a handful of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza participated in the October 7 massacre. UNRWA has repeatedly denied these accusations, saying there is “absolutely no ground for a blanket description of ‘the institution as a whole’ being ‘totally infiltrated.’”