The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on Wednesday that conducting an independent investigation into accusations of agency workers being involved in the attack by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Israel is very important.
“It is very important for us to conduct an independent investigation into these specific matters in the individual cases that Israel has brought to our attention,” Tamara Al-Rifai, spokeswoman for the UN agency, told Agence France-Presse.
She added, “We have 33,000 employees, almost all of whom work hard and are very committed, and have worked at the agency for many years.”
Al-Rifai indicated that UNRWA received allegations from the Israeli government regarding 12 names in Gaza, and we had to verify these names in the records of the organization, which includes 13,000 employees in Gaza, and we were able to match 8 of these names.
She pointed out that countries freezing their funding contributions to UNRWA is extremely devastating, explaining that the agency provides shelters, food and medical aid, and clean water to about two million people in Gaza.
For his part, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to all countries to ensure the continuity of UNRWA’s “life-saving” work.
UNRWA announced on Friday evening that it had expelled several of its employees, accused by the Israeli occupation authorities of involvement in the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle.
On Monday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken urged UNRWA to conduct a comprehensive investigation into these accusations, which he considered to be highly disturbing, but he said that UNRWA has played and continues to play an indispensable role in ensuring that the residents of Gaza receive assistance, stressing that no one can Play the role you play.
Funding suspension
Major countries donors to UNRWA announced the suspension of their funding in the wake of Israel accusing employees of the United Nations agency of involvement in the Hamas movement’s attack on Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip on October 7.
According to the United Nations, the countries that decided to suspend their funding to UNRWA as of yesterday evening were: the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, Italy, Britain, and Finland, as well as Germany, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Austria, and Sweden, as well as New Zealand and Iceland. Romania, Estonia, and the European Union.
On the other hand, Spain, Ireland and Norway announced that they would not cut aid, but expressed their willingness to support an investigation into Israel’s allegations.
UNRWA was established by a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly in 1949, and was mandated to provide assistance and protection to refugees in 5 regions: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Its work aims to reach a just solution to the refugee problem.
The agency provides relief services to about 5.9 million registered Palestinian refugees, including 1.7 million in the Gaza Strip, while Israel confirms that it will seek to prevent the agency from working in the Gaza Strip after the end of the war.
The Israeli accusations against the agency are not the first of their kind. Since the beginning of the aggression on Gaza, Israel has accused the agency’s employees of working for the Hamas movement. According to observers, this accusation is a prior justification for targeting UNRWA schools and facilities in the Gaza Strip, which hosts tens of thousands of displaced people, most of whom are children and women.
Since last October 7, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza, which, as of Tuesday, resulted in the death of 26,751 Palestinians and the injury of 65,636, most of them children and women, according to the Palestinian authorities, and caused massive destruction of infrastructure and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. According to the United Nations.
