The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has launched an investigation into several employees accused of taking part in Hamas’s 7 October attacks in Israel, and has severed ties with those staff members, its head said on Friday.
“The Israeli authorities have provided UNRWA with information about the alleged involvement of several UNRWA employees in the horrific attacks on Israel on 7 October,” the agency’s commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, said.
“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.”
The US state department said it would provide no additional funding to the agency until the allegations were addressed.
In a statement, Matthew Miller, a state department spokesperson, said Washington was “extremely troubled by the allegations that 12 UNRWA employees may have been involved in the 7 October Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.”
Lazzarini did not disclose the number of employees allegedly involved in the attacks, nor the nature of their alleged involvement. He said, however, that “any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror” would be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.
A spokesperson for UNRWA would not provide further detail.
Information leading to the investigation is thought to have been gathered by Israeli intelligence services, which are also reported to have found evidence that the agency’s vehicles and facilities may have been used during the 7 October attack.
UNRWA has been under pressure since the beginning of the conflict, with Israeli officials alleging complicity with Hamas. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and others have accused the agency of fuelling anti-Israeli sentiments, allegations it denies.
Lazzarini told journalists in Jerusalem earlier this month that he would be appointing an independent third party to investigate both the veracity of the charges and why they were being made. Establishing the integrity of agency was essential to its continued work and funding, he said.
The Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy accused UNRWA of announcing the news while the world’s attention was focused on the international court of justice ordering Israel to prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians and do more to help civilians in Gaza.
“Any other day, this would have been a major headline: Israel submits evidence of UN employees’ complicity with Hamas,” Levy wrote on X.
The secretary general of the UN, António Guterres, has been briefed about the allegations was horrified by the news, his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said.
Dujarric also said Guterres had asked Lazzarini to conduct a investigation to ensure that any UNRWA staff shown to have participated in or abetted the 7 October attacks has their employment terminated immediately and referred for potential criminal prosecution.
“An urgent and comprehensive independent review of UNRWA will be conducted,” he said.
UNRWA, whose biggest donors in 2022 included the US, Germany and the EU, has repeatedly said its capacity to render humanitarian assistance to people in Gaza is on the verge of collapse.
The US state department said UNRWA played a critical role in providing lifesaving assistance to Palestinians, including food, medicine, shelter and other vital humanitarian support.
“Their work has saved lives, and it is important that UNRWA address these allegations and take any appropriate corrective measures, including reviewing its existing policies and procedures,” its statement read.
The EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said it would “assess further steps and draw lessons based on the result of the full and comprehensive investigation”.
UNRWA, which established in 1949 after 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 agency has provided aid and used its facilities to shelter people fleeing bombardment and a ground offensive launched by Israel in Gaza in response to the 7 October attacks, in which 1,200 people were killed and 240 taken hostage. Before the war, it ran 700 schools and 140 health centres in the territory.
Israel’s offensive has reduced swathes of the densely populated Gaza to ruins and killed more than 26,000 Palestinians.
