Israeli officials announced new allegations regarding the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees employees’ ties to Gaza-based terrorist groups on Monday.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Monday that roughly 450 employees had ties with Hamas and other Gazan terrorist groups, which is a significant development from the January allegations against UNRWA that a dozen employees participated in the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. Those 12 were fired at the time and the U.N. has multiple investigations ongoing.
“Over 450 UNRWA employees are military operatives in terror groups in Gaza — 450. This is no mere coincidence. This is systematic. There is no claiming, ‘we did not know,’” Hagari said.
If the allegations are accurate, 450 employees with terror ties out of the roughly 13,000 UNRWA employees based in Gaza would account for roughly 3.5% of its workforce.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the agency known as UNRWA, told the U.N. General Assembly on Monday that his agency is “facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations, and ultimately end them,” adding, “Part of this campaign involves inundating donors with misinformation designed to foster distrust and tarnish the reputation of the Agency.”
The U.S. is among a contingent of countries that halted hundreds of millions of dollars of funding to UNRWA in the wake of the allegations against the dozen employees. Sixteen countries paused their funding, totaling $450 million.
The decision to suspend funding comes amid grave concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza due to the war. The U.S. military has carried out two airdrops of humanitarian aid into the strip due to the limited amount of aid.
Lazzarini said he had not been provided any further information since the day when he was told of the 12 UNRWA employees accused of participating in the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.
“Obviously, I’m frustrated,” he said, regarding the lack of evidence to the allegations.
While the Biden administration suspended aid to UNRWA, officials have stressed the importance of their mission and the lack of other entities who could carry out its mission.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late last month the United States had not independently confirmed the allegations but deemed them “highly credible,” while he also maintained, “No one else can play the role that UNRWA’s been playing, certainly not in the near term. No one has the reach, the capacity, the structure to do what UNRWA’s been doing. And from our perspective, it’s important — more than important; imperative — that that role continues.”
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Israeli leaders and many U.S. Republicans have said UNRWA should be shut down and the funds should be allocated to a different and likely new institution.
An unpublished UNRWA investigation alleged that Israeli forces abused hundreds of Palestinians while being held in detention, the New York Times reported this weekend. Lazzarini confirmed the existence of the yet-to-be-released report about people who “have been traumatized.”
