Nine UN Workers Fired As Probe Finds Links To Hamas

Nine employees of the UN agency that for decades has provided schooling, healthcare and other assistance to Palestinians in Gaza were fired after an investigation found they might have partici­pated in the October 7 Hamas ­attack on Israel.

The investigation by the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services, ordered after Israel alleged in January that employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency participated in the Gaza assault, examined the actions of 19 relief workers in all, according to the secretary-general’s office in a statement on Monday.

“For nine people, the evidence was sufficient to conclude that they may have been involved in the October 7 attacks,” deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said. “The employment of these individuals will be terminated in the interests of the agency.”

Of the other 10 UNRWA workers, the investigation found no evidence of involvement in the attack in one case.

Evidence against the remaining staffers was “insufficient to support the staff members’ involvement” in the attack, the statement said. It added, without elaboration, that “appropriate measures would be taken in due course”.

The findings that some staff might have been involved in the attack, in which nearly 1200 people were killed and at least 250 taken hostage, are a blow to the agency, the main UN organisation overseeing aid for more than five million Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Republicans in the US and ­Israeli politicians of all stripes have long accused UNRWA of pro-Palestinian bias, and Israel has in the past accused individual staffers of ties to Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by the US and Australia, and other militant groups.

Most of the agency’s roughly 30,000 staff are Palestinian.

In response to the findings, a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry said: “It is too little too late, but the truth is starting to come to light.”

Other workers remain at the agency who were involved in the massacre, the statement said: “The UN must fire them immediately and not sweep the issue under the rug.”

The international spokesman for Israel’s army, Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, said UNRWA had “stooped to a new level of low”.

Israel has sent the UN the names of additional UNRWA employees it said were Hamas operatives, the ministry said.

In a statement, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said those individuals “cannot work for UNRWA”, insisting staff must respect its policies on the “humanitarian principle of neutrality”.

The US State Department welcomed the UN’s “prompt ­action” in launching the investigation, noting in a statement that American funding of the agency, which was halted after Israel’s initial allegations in January, remained suspended.

“We will continue our work to address the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza through other humanitarian organisations, consistent with US law,” it said.

Israel’s allegations had prompted many governments, including top donor the US, to abruptly suspend funding to the agency, threatening its efforts to deliver aid in Gaza. Several countries, including Australia, have since resumed payments.

A separate UN investigation found in April that the refugee agency had to do more to ensure its employees remained politically neutral and weren’t teaching biased material in the relief agency’s schools, both in Gaza and the West Bank. That investigation found that anti-Semitic content was found in some textbooks and that some employees posted biased content on social media.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for the Oct­ober 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel’s campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,550 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not give breakdowns of civilian and militant deaths.

UNRWA, which has provided essential aid for Palestinian refugees since 1949, has long been criticised by Israel. Earlier this year, Mr Lazzarini called for Israel to “stop its campaign” against the organisation, citing “outrageous” attacks on its employees, facilities and operations.