As of: January 30, 2024, 12:12 p.m
Comments
Press
Split
UNRWA employees are said to have been involved in the Hamas attack on Israel.
The United Nations is now examining the allegation.
Jerusalem - More than a dozen employees of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees are believed to have played a role in Hamas-led attacks on Israeli cities on Oct. 7, with some actively involved in kidnappings in Israel's war.
This is according to an intelligence dossier compiled by the Israeli government and
seen by The
Washington Post on Monday.
The explosive allegations, which could not be independently verified, have sparked a high-level UN investigation and led a number of governments to cut off millions of dollars in funding to the organization at the height of a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The dossier, which was also reported on by The
New York Times
, contains many of the allegations that Israel has made for years against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), namely that it maintains a state of "interdependence" with Hamas.
The UN aid agency's logistical base, which houses thousands of displaced Palestinian families, in Rafah in the Gaza Strip.
The agency fired nine employees after the dossier was published.
© Loay Ayyoub/The Washington Post
Aid operation in the Gaza Strip in danger: famine threatens
The allegations of complicity have plunged the United Nations into crisis and jeopardized its operations in the Gaza Strip.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees is the main provider of aid and shelter in the besieged enclave, where famine is looming, and has warned that funds could be exhausted by the end of February.
Thirteen UNRWA staff were directly involved in the attacks, including six who were infiltrated into Israel, the document says, five of whom are believed to be affiliated with Hamas.
The document does not name the accused.
Guterres' statement named 12 UNRWA employees instead of the 13 named in the dossier - the reason for this discrepancy is unclear.
Two of those who entered Israel and two other personnel in Gaza are believed to have helped kidnap some of the 253 people captured that day.
One hostage, who was likely among 105 people released during a lull in fighting in late November, said she was kidnapped by a UNRWA teacher, according to the dossier.
My news
Putin's T-90 is defeated in a duel - a steel colossus full of weak points
Russia reacts to major NATO maneuvers – and threatens “tragic consequences” read
“The enemy is gathering troops”: According to Ukraine soldiers, Putin is preparing a major attack read
New survey shock for Ampel: Wagenknecht party is mixing everything up read
Failed attack: Russian tank pilot films the destruction of his own unit
Large-scale exercise Quadriga: Read “Step to warworthiness”.
UNRWA employees are said to be working with Hamas
The document claims that three other employees were instructed via text message to report to a gathering point to equip themselves with weapons on the evening of October 6, the day before the start of the war.
There is no confirmation that they attended the meeting.
At least one UNRWA staff member provided "logistical support" for the attack, and another was tasked with setting up an operations center in the aftermath, the dossier said.
It is unclear whether the accused employees followed the alleged orders.
“We have discovered that there are UNRWA employees who were either directly or indirectly involved in the October 7 massacre,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on British TalkTV on Monday.
“UNRWA is interspersed with Hamas.”
The results were presented to foreign governments and the United Nations on Friday, according to an Israeli official who did not want to be identified for confidentiality reasons.
However, Juliette Touma, UNRWA's communications director, said on Monday that Israel had not yet provided them with the entire dossier.
The news came just hours after a ruling by the United Nations International Court of Justice that ordered Israel to take immediate action to protect civilians in the Gaza Strip.
Read The Washington Post for free for four weeks
Your quality ticket from washingtonpost.com: Get exclusive research and 200+ stories free for four weeks.
United Nation shocked by allegations: investigations launched
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said on Sunday that the U.N.'s top investigative agency, the New York-based Office of Internal Oversight Services, had immediately launched an investigation into the allegations.
“Any UN staff member implicated in acts of terrorism will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution,” Guterres said in a statement.
He added that nine employees were "immediately identified and fired," one employee was "confirmed dead" and "the identities of the other two are still being determined."
Guterres' statement referred to 12 UNRWA staff, rather than the 13 named in the dossier - the reason for this discrepancy was not immediately clear.
The investigation takes UNRWA into uncharted waters.
It remains unclear how long the investigation will take, how it will be conducted in an active war zone and whether its results will be considered satisfactory by Israel and its allies.
The longer the investigation takes, the more precarious the organization's situation becomes.
At least ten governments, including the United States, Britain, Germany and Australia, immediately ended their support for UNRWA.
In 2022, the United States was the largest donor with $344 million.
'Everyone must be held accountable': UNRWA crisis comes at a desperate time
“Everyone involved in the heinous October 7 attacks must be held accountable,” the State Department said in a statement on Friday, adding that it had informed members of Congress of the allegations.
Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, said by telephone from Tunis that UNRWA already had a "very robust system for verifying allegations" of misconduct by staff and contractors.
“The agency has already separated the members believed to have committed the attacks,” she said.
“The suspension of funds at this critical time is absolutely unforgivable.”
The UNRWA crisis comes at a desperate time for Gaza.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 26,422 people have been killed, including many women and children, and 65,087 have been injured since the Israeli military operation began.
According to the United Nations, more than 150 UNRWA staff are among the dead - the largest loss of life the organization has ever suffered in a single conflict.
At least 1.9 million people in the enclave have been displaced, and 90 percent have less than one meal a day, according to the World Food Program.
Diseases are spreading and the healthcare system is in shambles.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres visits the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in October.
© Sima Diab/The Washington Post
UNRWA as a lifeline in the Gaza Strip: More than a million people need help
The head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, said on Sunday that more than 2 million people in the Gaza Strip depend almost entirely on the agency's aid and that more than a million people are housed in UN facilities.
Even before the funding pause, aid groups had warned that the Gaza Strip was on the brink of total humanitarian collapse, with hunger and winter cold the most pressing threats to civilians.
Because donors typically provide money throughout the year, it was not immediately clear how much aid would be withheld.
“But without new funding, UNRWA can only sustain its work until the end of February,” Touma said.
“These cuts will severely impact operations,” she added.
“The timing is really very critical as the threat of famine looms and humanitarian needs increase as more people are displaced.”
UNRWA coordinates the movement of humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip through the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings, a difficult and dangerous process that often takes place under fire.
According to Touma, the aid organization is the largest distributor of food in the Gaza Strip and one of the few remaining providers of medical care.
If the agency stops its work in the Gaza Strip, no other humanitarian organization will be able to take its place, she said.
Because of claims by a party to the conflict: UNRWA is under criticism
“I have never seen such an arbitrary and reckless cancellation of a major lifeline based on a mere allegation by a party to the conflict,” said Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“You want to cancel all this work just because a dozen UNRWA staff may have betrayed the principles we stand for?”
To the authors
Steve Hendrix
has been the Washington Post's Jerusalem bureau chief since 2019.
He joined the Post in 2000 and has written for just about every section of the paper: Foreign, National, Metro, Style, Travel, the Magazine.
He has reported from the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia, America and most corners of the United States.
Miriam Berger
covers foreign news for The Washington Post from Washington, DC.
Before joining the Post in 2019, she lived in Jerusalem and Cairo and reported freelance from the Middle East and parts of Africa and Central Asia.
Louisa Loveluck
is the head of the Baghdad office.
She previously worked for the Post in Beirut and worked as a Cairo correspondent for the Daily Telegraph.
UNRWA was founded in 1949 and was tasked with supporting Palestinian refugees who fled or were displaced from their homeland during the founding of Israel.
In the decades since, the makeshift refugee camps have become permanent slums, and the agency has taken on many of the functions of a state for a stateless population.
Israel has long accused UNRWA of supporting Hamas's military activities in the war against Israel in Gaza by allowing or overlooking the group's use of UN facilities and the construction of an extensive underground tunnel network.
According to Israel, the aid organization's schools and textbooks fuel anti-Semitism and support the Palestinian right of return.
The organization is threatened with closure: “You cannot win the war without destroying UNRWA”
During the recent conflict, calls for the organization to close grew louder.
“You cannot win the war without destroying UNRWA, and the destruction must begin today,” Noga Arbell, a former Israeli official, told the Israeli parliament earlier this month.
But without UNRWA, responsibility for around 5 million people in the Palestinian territories would fall to Israel.
In the occupied West Bank, tens of thousands of children attend UNRWA schools, and Palestinians rely on the agency's medical facilities to support the Western-backed but perpetually cash-strapped Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah.
The possible cuts in services could have a destabilizing effect there too, at a time when Israeli settler violence and Palestinian militancy are on the rise.
UNRWA also provides medical care, employment and educational services to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon who are increasingly at the center of escalating regional violence.
Hazem Balousha in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on January 30, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.