Israel has not offered proof to assist its allegations that many staff of the principle U.N. company for Palestinian refugees are members of terrorist organizations, based on an unbiased evaluate commissioned by the United Nations that was launched on Monday.
The evaluate was introduced in January, earlier than Israel circulated claims that important numbers of staff of the company, generally known as UNRWA, had been members of terrorist teams.
However by the point investigators began engaged on the evaluate in early February, it had taken on extra significance: Israel had accused a few dozen staff of the company, which employs about 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza, of involvement within the Oct. 7 Hamas-led assaults on Israel or their aftermath. Israel had additionally stated that one in 10 UNRWA staff in Gaza was a member of Hamas or its ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Talking at a information convention at U.N. headquarters in New York on Monday, Catherine Colonna, the previous French international minister who led the inquiry, stated she needed to be “very clear” that her evaluate didn’t deal with the allegations that some UNRWA workers members had been concerned within the Oct. 7 assaults. That query stays below inside investigation by the U.N.
“It’s a separate mission, and it isn’t in our mandate,” she stated.
Greater than a dozen nations, together with the USA, suspended funding to UNRWA in mild of the allegations. The United Nations fired 10 of the 12 staff accused within the assault whereas pleading with donor nations to revive funding at a time when nearly all of Gazans rely on the group for meals and shelter. It additionally introduced an inside investigation together with the unbiased exterior evaluate, which was made public on Monday.
The evaluate stated that UNRWA had lengthy shared lists of its staff with Israel, however that the Israeli authorities had not flagged any considerations about company staff since 2011.
“Israel made public claims {that a} important variety of UNRWA staff are members of terrorist organizations,” the report stated. “Nevertheless, Israel has but to offer supporting proof of this.”
In an announcement on Monday, Oren Marmorstein, a spokesman for the Israeli international ministry, stated, “Hamas has infiltrated UNRWA so deeply that it’s not doable to find out the place UNRWA ends and the place Hamas begins.”
“This isn’t what a real and thorough evaluate seems to be like,” he added. “That is what an effort to keep away from the issue and never deal with it head on seems to be like.”
Amid calls from Israel to shutter the company, the report commissioned by the United Nations stated UNRWA remained “pivotal in offering life-saving humanitarian assist and important social companies,” including that “UNRWA is irreplaceable and indispensable to Palestinians’ human and financial improvement.”
Nonetheless, the report discovered that regardless of “strong” pointers to make sure its neutrality, there have been weaknesses of their implementation due to issues within the company’s vetting processes, its inside investigations and restrictions on its means to forestall armed teams from utilizing its services for army functions.
The report stated the company “lacks the assist of intelligence companies to undertake environment friendly and complete vetting.”
A scarcity of sources had slowed the company’s investigations into alleged breaches of neutrality, “limiting UNRWA’s means to draw, rent, practice and retain appropriate, skilled and certified investigators,” the report stated.
The report added that there had been situations when company staff had publicly expressed political opinions, its colleges had used textbooks with “problematic content material” and a few of its services had been used for “political or army functions.” The report didn’t elaborate, however stated that breaches of neutrality “may embody the invention of weapons, cavities and tunnel openings, army actions or incursions.”
The evaluate supplied suggestions for safeguarding the company’s neutrality, together with extra screening and coaching of workers members, and nearer cooperation with host nations and Israel in sharing worker rosters.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the U.N. secretary basic, António Guterres, stated on Monday that Mr. Guterres had accepted the report’s suggestions and appealed for donors “to actively assist UNRWA, as it’s a lifeline for Palestine refugees within the area.”
Canada and Sweden — among the many nations that suspended funds over Israel’s allegations — resumed funding UNRWA final month, citing the spiraling humanitarian disaster in Gaza and steps taken by the company to enhance accountability. The USA has stated it might await the outcomes of U.N. investigations earlier than deciding whether or not to renew donations to UNRWA.
UNRWA was created to offer assist to Palestinians throughout the Center East whose households fled or had been pressured from lands in the course of the wars surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948. Since Hamas gained Palestinian elections in Gaza in 2006 and ousted a rival faction from the enclave a 12 months later, the group ceded lots of its civil duties to UNRWA.
Israel has alleged that UNRWA is essentially compromised, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has known as for it to be closed and changed “with accountable worldwide assist businesses.”
Michael Levenson and Anushka Patil contributed reporting.
