UNRWA opens probe into staff suspected of role in Israel attacks

The United Nations aid agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) has opened an investigation into several employees suspected of involvement in the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel by Hamas and that it had severed ties with these staff members. UNRWA, established in 1949 following the first Arab-Israeli war, provides services including schooling, primary healthcare and humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. “The Israeli authorities have provided UNRWA with information about the alleged involvement of several UNRWA employees in the horrific attacks on Israel on October 7,” said Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner-General. “To protect the agency’s ability to deliver humanitarian assistance, I have taken the decision to immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members and launch an investigation in order to establish the truth without delay.” Israel’s blistering ground and air offensive has decimated vast swaths of Gaza during the nearly 4-month-old war. The conflict broke out on Oct. 7 when Hamas terrorists stormed southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting some 250. UNRWA has provided aid and used its facilities to shelter people fleeing bombardment and a ground offensive launched by Israel in Gaza following the Oct. 7 attacks, in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 253 people taken hostage. “These shocking allegations come as more than 2 million people in Gaza depend on lifesaving assistance that the agency has been providing since the war began,” Lazzarini said. Israel’s offensive has laid waste to much of the densely populated Gaza Strip and killed more than 25,000 Palestinians. UNRWA, whose biggest donors in 2022 were the United States, Germany, the European Union and Sweden, has repeatedly said its capacity to render humanitarian assistance to people in Gaza is on the verge of collapse. With inputs from Reuters.