The controversy has not abated since the beginning of the year between the UN and Israel, which had already accused certain employees of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza of being involved in the massacre of civilians. October 7…
But the tension reached its peak this Monday, March 4, during a violent exchange of accusations between the two parties: on the same day, the Israeli army denounced the employment by UNRWA of hundreds of “terrorists” Gaza, while the agency claims that several of its employees were tortured by Israel to confess their links with Hamas.
Act I: the recall of the ambassador
The announcement came around 7:30 p.m. (French time) Monday March 4: Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, was recalled by Foreign Minister Israel Katz. The reason ? “Immediate consultations following the attempt to ignore the serious UN report on the massive rapes committed by Hamas and its allies on October 7”, which is about to be published by UN experts .
“It took the United Nations five months to finally recognize sexual crimes,” adds the ambassador, referring to the “shame of the UN exposed for all to see”, which regularly calls for the resignation of Secretary General Antonio Guterres, and accused the UN “of being itself a terrorist organization in Gaza.” Antonio Guterres’ spokesperson immediately denies these accusations. “In no case has the secretary general done anything to keep this report silent,” his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, told AFP.
Act II: publication of the report on sexual violence
The targeted report was published barely an hour later, around 8:30 p.m. There are “good reasons to believe” that victims of the Hamas attack on October 7 were raped, as were some of the 250 hostages kidnapped and taken to Gaza, say UN experts, asserting that they cannot specify the exact many of these sexual violence. This text appears at a time when the United Nations has been strongly criticized for several weeks by Israel for having reacted too slowly to the rapes and sexual violence that the country accuses Hamas of having committed on October 7.
In response to these accusations, the UN special representative on sexual violence in conflicts, Pramila Patten, accompanied by experts, visited Israel and the West Bank in early February for more than two weeks. Based on information gathered “from multiple and independent sources”, including several hostages released by Hamas, the report indicates having identified at least three locations, including the Nova festival site of the October 7 attack, where sexual violence has been committed, including rape and gang rape.
Act III: UNRWA again accused of terrorism
Still on the social network Claiming to base itself on information from intelligence services, the Israeli army affirmed Monday that “more than 450 terrorists belonging to terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip, mainly Hamas, are also employed by UNRWA.” A recording was published at the same time, revealing, according to her, the words “of a terrorist working as an Arabic teacher in an UNRWA school” who “described on October 7 his entry into Israeli territory and said that he is holding Israeli women hostage.”
These attacks by Israel echo an accusation that has already hovered over UNRWA since the end of January: according to the country, 12 of the 30,000 regional employees of the UN agency participated in the attacks of October 7 which led to the death of 1,160 people. The UN has since parted ways with the accused employees who are still alive, and Antonio Guterres has entrusted an independent group with a mission to assess UNRWA and its “neutrality”.
Act IV: the UN accuses Israel of “torturing” its employees
In the process, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees responded by speaking to Agence France Presse. In return, it accuses the Israeli authorities of having committed acts of “torture” against some of its employees arrested in the Gaza Strip on October 7.
According to her, some of her employees “reported to UNRWA teams that they had been forced to make confessions under torture” concerning “relations between UNRWA and Hamas and about involvement in the attack on October 7 against Israel. Confessions which, according to the UN, serve as part of a “disinformation” campaign led “by the Israeli authorities”. The accusation was immediately rejected by the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, who denounced an attempt to “distract the world’s attention from the real crimes” of UNWRA employees.
Act V: The existential crisis of UNRWA
A United Nations general assembly met on Monday March 4 in parallel with these violent exchanges, to discuss the case of the agency for Palestinian refugees, in “existential crisis”, according to its commissioner general Philippe Lazarini. It also points to a “deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine” the operations of the “backbone” of humanitarian aid in Gaza, with the aim of “putting an end to it”.
In this context of exchanges of accusations and denials, many countries defended the agency before the UN General Assembly, which created UNRWA in 1949. “Two million people are totally dependent on UNRWA services”, underlined Yemeni Ambassador Abdullah Ali Fadhel Al-Saadi, on behalf of Arab countries, calling on donors to resume their funding. Because if no proof has been put forward by Israel for the moment concerning the accusations of support for Hamas, 16 countries have already withdrawn their funding from UNRWA, which has lost 450 million dollars, or more than half of the funds received in 2023.
“Dismantling UNRWA is reckless,” insisted its boss Philippe Lazarini on Monday. “In doing so, we will sacrifice an entire generation of children, sowing the seeds of hatred, resentment and future conflict,” he insisted, as the Israeli offensive killed more than 30,500 dead in the Gaza Strip. However, he welcomed the new contributions announced: the European Commission has notably released 50 million euros. Thanks to them, the agency “can continue its operations and remain a vital aid to Palestinian refugees throughout the region,” he noted. “But for how long ?”. “Hard to say,” he said, still describing an organization at “a breaking point.”