Secret UNRWA operation rescues Nakba archive, relocates it to Jordan

• UNRWA completed a sensitive operation to rescue millions of Palestinian refugee documents.
• The archive contains original 1948 registration cards, birth certificates, and testimonies chronicling generations of Palestinian displacement.
• Documents were smuggled past border checkpoints into Egypt and airlifted via Jordanian military planes to Amman.

Humanitarian workers from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) have successfully concluded a sensitive, dangerous, and highly clandestine 10-month operation to rescue millions of historic archival documents from Gaza and East Jerusalem.

The rescued materials, which chronicle generations of trauma and displacement dating back to 1948, have been safely relocated to Jordan.

In a crowded basement in Amman, a massive effort funded primarily by Luxembourg is now underway to scan the documents by hand.

With nearly 30 million records already digitized, officials estimate it will take another two years to fully map out the historical family trees and displacement patterns.

"Their destruction would have been catastrophic," said Roger Hearn, a senior UNRWA official who oversaw the operation. "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."

Race through Gaza

UNRWA was founded in 1949 to provide healthcare, food, and education to approximately 750,000 Palestinian refugees.

Over the decades, its Gaza City compound became the repository for dusty boxes containing original registration cards, birth, marriage, and death certificates.

Experts like Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor of Middle East Studies at Sciences Po in Paris, describe these records as crucial testimonies of where people came from, what property they owned, and how 200,000 refugees flooded into Gaza between 1948 and 1949.

When 'Israeli' forces invaded Gaza in October 2023, international UNRWA staff were forced to evacuate Gaza City within hours, leaving the paper archives behind.

Amid a relentless offensive that killed more than 70,000 people, a small team of officials risked airstrikes and shelling to drive rented pickup trucks back into the compound.

Over three dangerous trips, they moved the documents south to a food warehouse in Rafah.

The operation faced technological threats alongside physical ones. UNRWA's digital servers were hit by relentless daily cyberattacks, briefly shutting down the registration system and threatening to permanently wipe out preexisting digital copies.

Furthermore, international transit presented a diplomatic bottleneck.

Knowing that an official request to clear the archives through Egypt would require consulting 'Israeli' authorities -who UNRWA officials feared would seize the documents- the agency relied on international staff to smuggle the papers out.

Staff members utilized their international passports to carry unmarked envelopes and mounds of paperwork across the border, telling border officials they were simply transporting routine office paperwork.

From Egypt, a Jordanian charity used the kingdom's military aid planes to airlift the precious boxes to Amman, clearing the final cargo just two weeks before 'Israeli' tanks seized the Rafah crossing in May 2024.

Evading East Jerusalem

Simultaneously, a second rescue front was opened in East Jerusalem.

For decades, 'Israel' has been hostile toward UNRWA, accusing the agency of keeping the Palestinian right of return alive by granting hereditary refugee status, alleging that its textbooks promote anti-'Israel' views.

Tensions peaked after 'Israel' alleged that UNRWA staff participated in the October 2023 events, leading to the dismissal of nine employees following an investigation.

By early 2024, UNRWA's East Jerusalem compound became the target of intense protests and a series of right-wing arson attacks that caused extensive damage.

Facing a concerted 'Israeli' effort to expel the agency, staff members spent months secretly transferring the Jerusalem archives out of the country to Jordan.

The removal was completed just in time; by January 2025, new 'Israeli' laws officially barred the UN agency from operating within 'Israel' and Occupied Palestine.

Archive secured

The preservation of these files holds immense historical and political weight. Dr. Anne Irfan, a historian of the modern Middle East at University College London, emphasized that because Palestinians are a stateless people without a unified national archive, the UNRWA records hold a unique significance.

Once the digitization process is fully complete, UNRWA aims to provide every Palestinian refugee with their verified family tree and supporting documentation.

For historians, the millions of papers open up vital lines of inquiry into the modern history of the Middle East, providing hard data for an era of highly contested history.