This is a new blow for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). Italy in turn suspended its aid to UNRWA this Saturday, January 27, announced Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani on the social network X. A little earlier, Australia and Canada had also communicated on the temporary cessation of their funding to the UN agency, following the path of the United States which, the day before, had opened the way.
These decisions are linked to accusations by Israeli authorities that twelve UNRWA employees may have been involved in the Hamas attack on October 7. The UN agency, regularly accused by Israel of corruption and collusion with Hamas, which it systematically denies, announced Friday that it had received information from Israel on “the supposed involvement of several its employees” in this attack.
A senior Israeli official questioned by the American site Axios said that the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence service, and Israeli military intelligence had provided information indicating the active participation of UNRWA personnel and the use of agency vehicles and facilities during of the Hamas attack of October 7. “This was solid, corroborated intelligence,” the senior Israeli official told Axios. “Much of the information comes from interrogations of activists arrested during the October 7 attack,” he said.
Founded in 1949, UNRWA operates schools and provides lifesaving assistance to millions of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories. It employs 30,000 people, mainly Palestinians. Its annual budget is $925 million.
Contracts of suspected staff terminated
This Saturday, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she was “deeply concerned” by the accusations against UNRWA. “We are speaking with our partners and will temporarily suspend the payment of recent funding,” she wrote on X. For his part, the Canadian Minister of International Development, Ahmed Hussen, announced that “Canada has temporarily suspended all additional funding to UNRWA while it undertakes a thorough investigation into these accusations.
“To protect the agency’s capacity to deliver humanitarian aid, I have decided to immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members and open an investigation,” the head of the agency, Philippe, said on Friday. Lazzarini, in a press release. “Any employee who has been involved in acts of terrorism will be held accountable, including through legal action,” he added. UNRWA reiterated “its condemnation in the strongest terms” of the October 7 attacks and called for the “immediate and unconditional” release of the Israeli hostages still held.
These statements were applauded by Australia. “We welcome UNRWA’s immediate response, including the termination of contracts (Editor’s note: staff members) as well as the announcement of an investigation into the accusations against the organization,” explained Penny Wong. She highlighted the impact of UNRWA’s “vital work” for the people of Gaza and “the more than 1.4 million Palestinians currently sheltering in its facilities.
The United States, main contributor to UNRWA
On Friday, the United States was “extremely concerned by accusations that twelve UNRWA employees may have been involved in the attack,” as State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement. communicated. The head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, spoke with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to “highlight the need for a rapid and thorough investigation into this matter”.
The United States, the main contributor to UNRWA to the tune of $300 million per year, had already withdrawn its funding under the Trump administration, which deemed its activities “irremediably biased”. The arrival of Joe Biden offered him a breath of fresh air, with the restoration announced in 2021 of aid of 340 million dollars.
Israel, which believes that the UN agency no longer has any reason to exist in its current form, expressed this Saturday the wish that the latter no longer plays any role in Gaza. The government wants to “ensure that UNRWA will not be part” of the solution in the Palestinian territory after the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement, hoping to “make cease” all agency activities. Hamas, for its part, denounced Israel’s “threats and blackmail” against UN agencies. “We ask the United Nations and international organizations not to give in to threats and blackmail” from Israel, the Palestinian Islamist movement said in a statement.
UNRWA training center attacked
Relations between Israel and UNRWA have further deteriorated in recent days when the UN accused two Israeli tanks of firing on a UN agency training center in Khan Younes, in the south of the Strip, on Wednesday. Gaza. Transformed into a shelter since the start of the war, it shelters tens of thousands of displaced people. Thirteen people were killed and more than 56 injured, including 21 in critical condition in these strikes, according to the agency.
Philippe Lazzarini denounced a “flagrant violation of the fundamental rules of war”. The Israeli army, for its part, announced a “thorough review” of its operations in the area concerned, without ruling out the possibility of a Hamas strike. The Israeli army is the only force in the Gaza Strip to deploy tanks. Since October 7, more than a hundred UNRWA employees have been killed.
France, for its part, indicated on Friday that it had “taken note with dismay of the information communicated today by UNRWA, relating to the participation of certain of these employees in the terrorist attacks of October 7 against Israel” and “takes note of the press release of UNRWA which announces the launch of an investigation and the suspension of these employees”. “We call on UNRWA to take measures to ensure that no hate speech can no longer flourish within it without firm sanctions,” the Quai d’Orsay said in a statement.