Tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem were set to lose education, healthcare and other services provided by UN agency UNRWA as an Israeli ban on the organisation takes effect on Thursday, Reuters reports.

At UNRWA’s offices in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, workers were packing boxes and loading portable buildings onto a truck.

“It’s an unacceptable decision,” said Jonathan Fowler, a spokesperson for UNRWA. “The people that we serve … we are not able to tell them what is going to happen to our services as of the end of this week.”