Months after Israel accused the United Nations relief agency in Gaza of participating in the October 7 atrocities that touched off a war, the UN has finally admitted that at least nine of its employees “may have been involved.”
Those nine have been fired, the UN announced. But have they been handed over to the Israelis to be held accountable for their crimes? Unknown at this time, however, unlikely.
The United Nations said Monday it has fired nine staff members from its agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, after an internal investigation found they may have been involved in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack against Israel.
The U.N. secretary-general’s office announced the move in a brief statement to journalists Monday. It did not elaborate on the UNRWA staffers’ likely role in the attack. It said the nine included seven staffers who were fired previously over the claims.
Count the Israelis as thoroughly unimpressed with the admission and the administrative actions taken by the UN. Israel’s ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan called the report a “disgrace” that covered up much wider infiltration by Hamas into UNRWA, despite Israeli cooperation in the investigation.
Erdan said in a statement:
The investigation ignored the thousands of agency employees involved in Hamas terrorism and the extent of their involvement. Israel has provided the UN with precise details of over a hundred UNRWA employees who are members of the terrorist organization Hamas.
Further:
And as if that weren’t enough—the Secretary-General recently chose to award UNRWA-Gaza the UN Secretary-General’s Award for 2023.
Ambassador Erdan called for Philippe Lazzarini the Commissioner-General of the UNRWA to resign and for UNRWA to be shut down. Erdan also called on Israel to declare UNRWA a terrorist organization, and to expel its leaders from the state.
Indeed, and not just over the October 7 massacres. The IDF has uncovered a number of UNRWA facilities that provided cover for Hamas operations before and during the war. In fact, IDF troops discovered in February that Hamas’ main data center was located directly below UNRWA’s Gaza City headquarters, clearly using the facility as a shield against Israeli military operations. In later operations, the IDF found weapons caches inside the HQ and a bomb-making lab in a nearby building. There have been a number of instances where Israeli soldiers have discovered weapons caches inside UNRWA schools, including one in May that Hamas booby-trapped—which resulted in the deaths of three soldiers.
Will the US join calls to shut down the UNRWA after all of these pieces show deep terrorist infiltration?
First, the U.S. media would have to report on it. The Associated Press did pick it up as linked above, and Israeli media covered it as well. However, as of right now the New York Times has yet to report on the United Nations’ conclusions—even though it reported in its opinion section in April that “UNRWA is vital to Gaza’s future.” The Washington Post picked up the AP report pretty quickly, to its credit. Not too many others are doing the same as of publication time.
Given all of this evidence, though, and the UN’s own conclusion about UNRWA officials participating in a genocidal attack on Israel, what possible excuse could be given for funding this atrocity-supporting corrupted organization? Perhaps some of America’s allies will explain that. Don’t hold your breath, however.
