An intelligence report given to the United States government by Israel on the actions of several employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) during the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack reveals shocking details of terrorist acts by UN employees.
According to the Israeli report, six UNRWA employees infiltrated Israel as part of the October 7 attack, four were involved in kidnapping Israelis, and three additional UNRWA employees were “invited via a SMS text to arrive at an assembly area in the night before the attack and were directed to equip with weapons."
So far, six nations have cut off funding to UNRWA, at least until the UN can determine the extent of UNRWA's involvement and what the agency is going to do going forward to prevent Hamas terrorists from working with it in the future.
UNRWA's commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, warned of impending catastrophe. “It would be immensely irresponsible to sanction an agency and an entire community it serves because of allegations of criminal acts against some individuals, especially at a time of war, displacement and political crises in the region,” he said.
“The lives of people in Gaza depend on this support, and so does regional stability,” Lazzarini said.
Israel is not sure that Lazzarini is unaware of the extensive infiltration of Hamas into UNRWA. Palestinian schools, mosques, community centers, aid stations, and other UNRWA-sponsored aid outlets have all been fingered as Hamas weapons depots, terrorist training centers, bomb-making labs, and other locations where the "resistance" against Israel festers.
UNRWA employs 13,000 mostly Palestinians in Gaza. Without UNRWA, tens of thousands of people will die. Without UNRWA, Israel would have to bear the burden of supplying aid to the poverty-stricken strip. And Israel doesn't want the job.
Amid warnings of famine, the collapse of the health system and the massive displacement of the Palestinian population, UNRWA’s work is considered more important than ever. It helps coordinate the distribution of the supplies of aid — however meager — that arrive each day in southern Gaza, and its schools provide shelter to more than a million Gazans, according to the agency’s statistics.
The funding suspensions may be felt quickly. Unlike other U.N. agencies, UNRWA has no strategic financial reserve. On Sunday, Mr. Guterres said services might need to be reduced beginning in February.
Can UNRWA be salvaged? Even its advocates must admit the situation is untenable. There are a lot more than 12 Hamas sympathizers and/or terrorists in UNRWA, making the agency a nest of vipers within easy striking distance of innocent Israeli citizens — unless UNRWA leadership can suggest a way to purge Hamas from the agency.
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No nation can allow such a threat to be maintained within its borders no matter how much aid they deliver to innocent Palestinian civilians. Israel has been agitating for years for UNRWA to be folded into the main UN refugee agency, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
As it stands now, UNRWA works to prevent Palestinians from assimilating not just in Israel, but across the Middle East. It is in the interest of UNRWA's survival as an agency that Palestinians do not assimilate. If they did, the reason for UNRWA's very existence would be eliminated.
It will take a year or two to merge UNRWA with the UNHRC — if the merger were ever approved by the UN. In the meantime, a lot of Palestinians are going to die because their primary aid agency is staffed by terrorists and terrorist sympathizers.
Who's to blame for that?
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