#UNRWA / Israel’s evidence of UNRWA Hamas allegations examined
Reminder: in a dossier just six pages long, #Israel has alleged that 12 of the agency’s more than thirteen thousand staff in Gaza were involved in the 7th October attacks, leading nations including the #UK and the #US to withdraw their financial support.
---- partial transcript of first part of the report ----
Children in Gaza are hungry, and the fear is that they are about to get hungrier. Donors to UNRWA, the main UN agency that supports Palestinians, including the UK, withdrew their funding 10 days ago, because of allegations in a confidential Israeli document that this program has now seen. The document repeats an allegation the IDF has made many times that the "Hamas terrorist organization" has been methodically and deliberately in placing its terrorist infrastructure in a wide range of UN facilities and assets, but provides no evidence to support its explosive new claim that unruly staff were involved in the terror attacks on Israel, just stating: "From intelligence information, documents and identity cards seized during the course of the fighting, it is now possible to flag around 190 Hamas and PIJ terrorist operatives who serve as UNRWA employees. More than 10 UNRWA staffers took part in the events of the 7th of October. Israel gave the document to Donas just after the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, made an interim ruling on a charge of genocide against Israel.
"Israel must take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.""
Christopher Gunness (UNRWA spokesperson 2007-19): It is utterly shocking that the Donner who accuse UNRWA of instrumentalizing aid as they have done are themselves weaponizing UNRWA. It is a violation of international humanitarian law. It is a violation of international principles. It is a violation of the ruling by the ICJ, which says nobody should squeeze international humanitarian aid --- what Britain and others done is squeeze the aid --- and it is a violation of the genocide convention because it will devastate the lives of 1.2 million people who are on UNRWA's food lines even before the 7th of October, and that is going to get longer. It will undoubtedly, if unsuspended, lead to mass starvation.
Apart from emergency aid, UNRWA runs schools, hospitals and other services for 5.9 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East. It employs 13,000 Gazans, all of whose names have been checked against a UN terrorism list and has recently as last May were vetted and approved by Israel. UNRWA immediately fired the staff members named in the document and mounted an investigation.
Josep Borrell (EU Foreign Policy Chief): UNRWA is playing a critical role, it is true that the Israeli government has been very critical, not now from many times ago, but we cannot punish 2 million people by depriving them of the support the donors providing.
The Israeli Prime Minister, who met a UN delegation last week, is angry that UN reports about the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were cited as evidence in the genocide hearing, adding to his anger that UNRWA staff allegedly took part in acts of terror.
Binyamin Netanyahu (unindicted war criminal as of now): I think it's time that the international community in the UN itself understand that UNRWA's mission has to end.
Today, UNRWA released photographs, they say, show a food aid truck in #Gaza, which was hit by Israeli naval gunfire. The Israelis haven't yet commented.
In Gaza, the suffering never seems to end. Today, the UN Secretary General announced an investigation into UNRWA to be headed by a former French foreign minister. If UNRWA were forced to close, another organization would have to step in. Under international law, in the West Bank and Gaza, the occupying power, which is Israel, would be held responsible.
