Israel has not supplied proof to help its allegations that many workers of the primary U.N. company for Palestinian refugees are members of terrorist organizations, in response to an impartial evaluate commissioned by the United Nations that was launched on Monday.
The evaluate didn’t deal with Israel’s allegation {that a} dozen workers of the company, referred to as UNRWA, have been concerned within the Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct. 7. “It’s a separate mission, and it’s not in our mandate,” mentioned Catherine Colonna, the previous French overseas minister who led the inquiry.
The evaluate was introduced in January, earlier than Israel circulated claims that one in 10 of UNRWA’s 13,000 workers within the Gaza Strip was a member of Hamas or its ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and that a few of these workers took half within the Oct. 7 assault.
However by the point investigators began engaged on the evaluate in early February, Israel had leveled these expenses, giving the inquiry added significance.
Talking at a information convention at U.N. headquarters in New York on Monday, Ms. Colonna mentioned she wished to be “very clear” that the query of involvement in Oct. 7 is a separate query, one that continues to be beneath inside investigation by the U.N.
Whereas Israel has not produced proof of ties to Hamas and different militant teams amongst UNRWA staff, that doesn’t imply there isn’t any proof, she famous. “It’s very totally different,” she mentioned.
Greater than a dozen international locations, together with america, suspended funding to UNRWA in mild of the allegations. The United Nations fired 10 of the 12 workers accused within the assault whereas pleading with donor international locations to revive funding at a time when the vast majority of Gazans rely upon the group for meals and shelter. It additionally introduced an inside investigation together with the impartial exterior evaluate, which was made public on Monday.
After the Biden administration halted funding for the company pending the outcomes of investigations, Congress barred any cash for the company for a 12 months, by March 2025.
The evaluate led by Ms. Colonna mentioned that UNRWA had lengthy shared lists of its workers with Israel, however that the Israeli authorities had not flagged any considerations about company workers since 2011.
“Israel made public claims {that a} important variety of UNRWA workers are members of terrorist organizations,” the report mentioned. “Nonetheless, Israel has but to offer supporting proof of this.”
In a press release on Monday, Oren Marmorstein, a spokesman for the Israeli overseas ministry, mentioned, “Hamas has infiltrated UNRWA so deeply that it’s now not potential to find out the place UNRWA ends and the place Hamas begins.”
“This isn’t what a real and thorough evaluate appears like,” he added. “That is what an effort to keep away from the issue and never deal with it head on appears like.”
Amid calls from Israel to shutter the company, the report commissioned by the United Nations mentioned UNRWA remained “pivotal in offering life-saving humanitarian assist and important social providers,” including that “UNRWA is irreplaceable and indispensable to Palestinians’ human and financial growth.”
Nonetheless, the report discovered that regardless of “sturdy” tips 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 potential to stop armed teams from utilizing its services for army functions.
The report mentioned the company “lacks the help of intelligence providers to undertake environment friendly and complete vetting.”
An absence of sources had slowed the company’s investigations into alleged breaches of neutrality, “limiting UNRWA’s potential to draw, rent, practice and retain appropriate, skilled and certified investigators,” the report mentioned.
The report added that there had been cases when company workers had publicly expressed political beliefs, 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 mentioned that breaches of neutrality “might embody the invention of weapons, cavities and tunnel openings, army actions or incursions.”
The evaluate supplied suggestions for shielding the company’s neutrality, together with extra screening and coaching of workers members, and nearer cooperation with host international locations and Israel in sharing worker rosters.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the U.N. secretary normal, António Guterres, mentioned on Monday that Mr. Guterres had accepted the report’s suggestions and appealed for donors “to actively help UNRWA, as it’s a lifeline for Palestine refugees within the area.”
Among the many international locations that suspended funds over Israel’s allegations, a number of — together with Canada, Japan and Australia — have resumed funding UNRWA, citing the spiraling humanitarian disaster in Gaza and steps taken by the company to enhance accountability. The US has mentioned it will anticipate the outcomes of U.N. investigations earlier than deciding whether or not to renew donations to UNRWA.
Matthew Miller, a State Division spokesman, advised reporters on Monday that the Biden administration was reviewing the United Nations report and had no evaluation but of its conclusions.
“Definitely, we welcome the truth that the secretary-general has accepted the suggestions,” Mr. Miller mentioned, including that america had “lengthy made clear that there must be reforms at UNRWA.”
“We’ve got all the time made clear that we expect the position that UNRWA performs is indispensable in offering and facilitating the supply of humanitarian help — not simply in Gaza, however within the broader area,” he mentioned. “We proceed to help the work that they do.”
UNRWA was created to offer assist to Palestinians throughout the Center East whose households fled or have been pressured from lands in the course of the wars surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948. Since Hamas received 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 tasks 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 companies.”
Michael Levenson, Anushka Patil and Michael Crowley contributed reporting.
