United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced an independent review of the agency’s office that focuses on the Palestinian territories following allegations that a handful of employees participated in terrorism.
Catherine Colonna, France’s former minister of foreign affairs, will lead the review, which Guterres announced on Monday. She will work with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights.
They will begin their review on Feb. 14 and will submit a preliminary report to Guterres, who said cooperation by Israeli authorities will be critical to their work, by late March.
The review group will “assess whether the Agency is doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality and to respond to allegations of serious breaches when they are made,” the secretary-general said in a statement.
This review will take place in parallel with an investigation by the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services into allegations that a dozen UNRWA personnel participated in various ways in the Oct. 7 attack that led to the Israel-Hamas war.
UNRWA has long faced allegations of having ties to Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group that governs the Gaza Strip and carried out the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history last October. Last month, the organization announced the firing of 12 employees who allegedly participated in the attack and announced an investigation into the matter.
Several UNRWA funders, including the United States, have temporarily halted their funding due to the allegations, even as the war continues to ravage much of the Gaza Strip. Despite the concern, the Biden administration has reiterated that UNRWA provides life-saving services to Palestinians who need that support.
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. 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.”
The U.S. has already provided UNRWA with $121 million this fiscal year, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said last week, while the suspended funds only amount to roughly $300,000.
