A New Battle Front In Gaza: Israel Vs UNRWA – OpEd

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is the only agency of the world body which focuses solely on humanitarian assistance to millions of Palestinian refugees—and more so, during the current military conflict between Israel and Hamas.

But as the ongoing nine-month-old war in Gaza continues to escalate, the Israelis have accused UNRWA, which is staffed mostly with Palestinians, of harboring and employing members of Hamas, which the agency has vehemently denied.

Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner-General, a Swiss-Italian, said the war in Gaza has produced a blatant disregard for the mission of the United Nations, including outrageous attacks on the employees, facilities and operations of the UNRWA.

“These attacks must stop, and the world must act to hold the perpetrators accountable,” he warned last month.

Lazzarini said on July 10 that four schools have been hit in the last four days in Gaza. Since the war began, he said, two thirds of UNRWA school buildings in Gaza—currently being used as shelters for displaced people, given that schools are not operational—two-thirds of those buildings have been hit. Some have been bombed out and many severely damaged.

Last week Israel hit back at Lazzarini calling him “a terrorist sympathizer, a Jew-killing enabler and a liar.” Asked for a response, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said July 17: “It’s reprehensible, and it frankly puts Philippe at risk”.

“And I think we’ve seen since the beginning, since 7 October and even before, but really since 7 October, UNRWA being the target of a number of attacks, both figuratively and literally. We just talked about the attacks on premises.”

Unacceptable

The remarks, especially those focused on Mr. Lazzarini, personally made by David Mencer, (Israeli government spokesman) last week “are unacceptable, to say the least”, said Dujarric.

“I think that using the kind of inflammatory language he used to describe Mr. Lazzarini, and I don’t want to repeat them, but they’re there for the record, in an environment that’s already extremely volatile is reprehensible and downright dangerous, because it puts at risk senior UN officials whose only focus is on helping civilians in Gaza and to alleviate their suffering. And, of course, an individual like Mr. Lazzarini, who has been very clear in his and very vocal in denouncing the attack, the terror attacks by Hamas on 7 October.”

UNRWA’s management has been very clear. They’ve been fully transparent in their operations and willing to cooperate with the Israeli authorities regarding allegations of infiltration by the agency, he added.

“As you saw and as you well know, there have been a number of efforts on behalf of the UN and as you also recall, UNRWA were the first ones to announce the list of staff that had been potentially involved in 7 October 2023”, said Dujarric.

There was a report by the former French Foreign Minister, Catherine Colonna, whose recommendations are already being implemented, plus the ongoing OIOS (Office for Internal Oversight Services) report, “which I’ve mentioned a few times, which we expect to have an update before the end of the month,” he noted.

Meanwhile, UNRWA says it has verified at least 197 UNRWA employees killed in Gaza. Nearly 190 UNRWA premises have been damaged or destroyed. UNRWA-run schools have been demolished; at least 520 displaced people have been killed while sheltered inside UNRWA schools and other structures.

Since October 7, Israeli security forces have rounded up UNRWA personnel in Gaza, who have alleged torture and mistreatment while in detention in the Strip and in Israel, Lazzarini said.

Harassed

UNRWA staff members, he pointed out, are regularly harassed and humiliated at Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank including East Jerusalem. Agency installations are used by the Israel security forces, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups for military purposes.

UNRWA is not the only U.N. agency that faces danger. In April, gunfire hit World Food Program and UNICEF vehicles, apparently inadvertently but despite coordination with the Israeli authorities.

In an article published in theNew York Timeslast week, Lazzarini said the assault on UNRWA has spread to East Jerusalem, where a member of the Jerusalem municipality has helped incite protests against UNRWA.

Demonstrations are becoming increasingly dangerous, with at least two arson attacks on the UNRWA compound, and a crowd including Israeli children gathered outside the premises singing “Let the U.N. burn.”

“At other times, demonstrators threw stones. Israeli officials are not only threatening the work of our staff and mission, they are also delegitimizing UNRWA by effectively characterizing it as a terrorist organization that fosters extremism and labeling U.N. leaders as terrorists who collude with Hamas. By doing so, they are creating a dangerous precedent of routine targeting of U.N. staff and premises.”

How can this be possible? Where is the international outrage? asked Lazzarini.

“Its absence is a license to disregard the United Nations and opens the door to impunity and chaos. If we tolerate such attacks in the context of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, we cannot uphold humanitarian principles in other conflicts around the world. This assault on the United Nations will further diminish our tools for peace and defense against inhumanity around the world. It must not become the new norm.”

While Israel has long been hostile to UNRWA, following the abhorrent attacks of October 7 it unleashed a campaign to equate UNRWA with Hamas and depict the agency as promoting extremism. In a new dimension to this campaign, the Israeli government made serious allegations that UNRWA staff were involved in the Hamas attack.

Deplorable assault on Israel

There is no question that individuals accused of criminal acts, including the deplorable assault on Israel, must be investigated. This is exactly what the United Nations is doing. Those individuals must be held accountable through criminal prosecution and, if found guilty, punished, said the Times article.

The Office of Internal Oversight Services, the top investigative body in the U.N. system, is overseeing this inquiry. It is looking into allegations against 19 out of 13,000 UNRWA staff members in Gaza. To date, one case was closed because there was no evidence. Four cases were suspended because the information was insufficient to proceed. Another 14 cases remain under investigation.

According to a news report in the Times of Israel July 2, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is considering merging three bills aimed at significantly curtailing the activities of UNRWA, amid a wave of popular anger against the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees and their descendants in the wake of the October 7 attack and the ongoing war.

The first bill, proposed by Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, wouldban the organization from operating on Israeli territoryand effectively erase its presence in Jerusalem.

The second, promoted by Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky, would brand UNRWA—“a terrorist organization and require Israel to cut ties with it”.

The third proposal—itself a merger of two almost identical bills submitted separately by Yesh Atid MK Ron Katz and Likud lawmaker Dan Illouz, according to Illouz’s spokesperson—would strip UNRWA personnel of the legal immunities and privileges afforded to United Nations staff in Israel, such as exemptions from property taxes.

The agency provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Israel alleges that some 10 percent of UNRWA’s staff in Gaza have ties to terror, and that educational facilities under the organization’s auspices consistently incite to hatred of Israel and glorify terror.

“UNRWA should not exist at all,” Malinovsky told the committee, calling it a “branch of Hamas” and stating that it is “a terrorist organization for all intents and purposes.”

Israel has accused multiple UNRWA staffers of taking part in Hamas’s attack on October 7, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, and the IDF has found a Hamas data center locateddirectly beneath UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City, in addition to numerous findings indicating use of the agency’s assets for terror purposes.

Of the initial 12 employees accused by Israel, UNRWA fired 10 people and said the remaining two are dead. The U.N. latersuspended investigationsinto several of the accused, claiming that Israel had provided insufficient evidence.

According to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, of the 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza, at least 12%are affiliatedwith the Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror groups, including 1,468 employees active in Hamas and PIJ. Of those, 185 UNRWA workers were active in the military branches of Hamas, and 51 in the PIJ military branch.