Israel has not offered proof to help its allegations that many staff of the primary U.N. company for Palestinian refugees are members of terrorist organizations, in line with an impartial evaluation commissioned by the United Nations that was launched on Monday.
The evaluation didn’t deal with Israel’s allegation {that a} dozen staff of the company, referred to as UNRWA, had been concerned within the Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct. 7. “It’s a separate mission, and it’s not in our mandate,” stated Catherine Colonna, the previous French international minister who led the inquiry.
The evaluation was announced in January, earlier than Israel circulated claims that one in 10 of UNRWA’s 13,000 staff within the Gaza Strip was a member of Hamas or its ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and that a few of these staff took half within the Oct. 7 assault.
However by the point investigators began engaged on the evaluation in early February, Israel had leveled these fees, giving the inquiry added significance.
Talking at a information convention at U.N. headquarters in New York on Monday, Ms. Colonna stated she wished to be “very clear” that the query of involvement in Oct. 7 is a separate query, one that is still 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 completely different,” she stated.
Greater than a dozen international locations, together with the US, suspended funding to UNRWA in gentle of the allegations. The United Nations fired 10 of the 12 staff 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 independent external review, which was made public on Monday.
The evaluation stated that UNRWA had lengthy shared lists of its staff with Israel, however that the Israeli authorities had not flagged any issues about company staff since 2011.
“Israel made public claims {that a} vital variety of UNRWA staff are members of terrorist organizations,” the report stated. “Nonetheless, Israel has but to supply supporting proof of this.”
In an announcement on Monday, Oren Marmorstein, a spokesman for the Israeli international ministry, stated, “Hamas has infiltrated UNRWA so deeply that it’s not potential to find out the place UNRWA ends and the place Hamas begins.”
“This isn’t what a real and thorough evaluation seems to be like,” he added. “That is what an effort to keep away from the issue and never deal with it head on seems to be like.”
Amid calls from Israel to shutter the company, the report commissioned by the United Nations stated UNRWA remained “pivotal in offering life-saving humanitarian support 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” pointers 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 skill to stop armed teams from utilizing its services for navy functions.
The report stated the company “lacks the help of intelligence providers to undertake environment friendly and complete vetting.”
A scarcity of sources had slowed the company’s investigations into alleged breaches of neutrality, “limiting UNRWA’s skill to draw, rent, practice and retain appropriate, skilled and certified investigators,” the report stated.
The report added that there had been situations when company staff 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 navy functions.” The report didn’t elaborate, however stated that breaches of neutrality “might embrace the invention of weapons, cavities and tunnel openings, navy actions or incursions.”
The evaluation provided suggestions for safeguarding the company’s neutrality, together with extra screening and coaching of employees members, and nearer cooperation with host international locations and Israel in sharing worker rosters.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the U.N. secretary basic, António Guterres, stated 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 catastrophe in Gaza and steps taken by the company to enhance accountability. The USA has stated it might 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.
“Actually, we welcome the truth that the secretary-general has accepted the suggestions,” Mr. Miller stated, including that the US had “lengthy made clear that there must be reforms at UNRWA.”
“Now we have at all times made clear that we predict 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 stated. “We proceed to help the work that they do.”
UNRWA was created to provide aid to Palestinians throughout the Center East whose households fled or had been pressured from lands throughout the wars surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948. Since Hamas gained Palestinian elections in Gaza in 2006 and ousted a rival faction from the enclave a 12 months later, the group ceded a lot of its civil obligations to UNRWA.
Israel has alleged that UNRWA is basically compromised, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has known as for it to be closed and changed “with accountable worldwide support businesses.”
Michael Levenson, Anushka Patil and Michael Crowley contributed reporting.
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