JERUSALEM – The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the so-called humanitarian organization which only represents the Palestinians, finally officially admitted this week what has been known for several months already – namely its operatives took part in the Hamas-inspired Oct. 7 slaughter of Israelis in southern Israel and its communities.
Well, sort of.
“For nine people, the evidence was sufficient to conclude they may have been involved in the seventh of October attacks,” Deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said. They have apparently had their employment terminated. Nineteen people in all were investigated through the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS). It delivered a confidential report – which will not be made public – to United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.
In nine other cases, the OIOS claimed the evidence of involvement was insufficient, and in one case, it said there was no evidence.
Israel’s outgoing Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, who recently received the “Defender of Israel” award from Christians United for Israel (CUFI), lambasted both the timing of the report and its findings.
He labeled it a “disgrace” and “too little too late.” “The investigation ignored the thousands of agency employees involved in Hamas terrorism and the extent of their involvement. Israel has provided the U.N. with precise details of over a hundred UNRWA employees who are members of the terrorist organization Hamas,” Erdan said in a statement.
תחקיר האו״ם, שהתמקד אך ורק ב-19 עובדי אונר״א הוא חרפה! מעט מידי ומאוחר מידי. התחקיר התעלם מאלפי עובדי הסוכנות המעורבים בפעילות הטרור של חמאס, ומהיקף המעורבות. ישראל העבירה לאו״ם פרטים מדוייקים של למעלה ממאה מעובדי אונר״א החברים בארגון הטרור חמאס.
חרף שיתוף הפעולה והמידע שישראל… pic.twitter.com/si51Zxmb2x
— Ambassador Gilad Erdan גלעד ארדן (@giladerdan1) August 5, 2024
To rub salt into an already festering wound Guterres recently awarded UNRWA-Gaza the U.N. Secretary-General’s Award for 2023. Erdan also called for Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA commissioner-general, to resign and for the entire organization to be shut down. Lazzarini was recently embarrassed at an event in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he was the honored guest of the socialist mayor’s Swiss National Day ceremony. As he attempted to speak, a woman – Ayelet Samerano – whose son, Jonathan, was killed and his body kidnapped to Gaza – stood up and declared, “UNRWA kidnapped my son!” Following up with, “Where is he Mr. Lazzarini?” Jonathan Samerano’s lifeless body was infamously seen on a security camera being dumped into a white pickup truck by two Gazans wearing, clearly visibly wearing UNRWA jackets.
Mr. Lazzarini, you speak of “humanitarian law,” “our humanity” and “the universal values of the Geneva Conventions,” yet in practice you knowingly employ thousands of pro-Jihadis. When Ayelet Samerano said “UNRWA kidnapped by son, where is he Mr. Lazzarini?”— you had no reply. https://t.co/45RjHXPt2G pic.twitter.com/h8HNj9wV8c
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 2, 2024
Lazzarini released a statement on behalf of UNRWA saying, “UNRWA is committed to continue upholding the fundamental principles of the United Nations, including the humanitarian principle of neutrality, and to ensure all its staff abide by the Agency’s policy on outside and political activity.”
Hillel Neuer, executive director of United Nations Watch, has been one of the key figures holding the leadership of UNRWA accountable. It was he who invited Ayelet Samerano to Lausanne to embarrass Lazarini, and his organization has been instrumental in pushing back against UNRWA’s obfuscations, aided and abetted by the corporate media.
He was highly critical of the Colonna report, named for Catherine Colonna, the former French Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was selected to head the review group. In an article posted on UN Watch’s website, he said its composition was clear evidence the fix was in. Moreover, he added the real point of the report was, according to a former UNRWA spokesman, Chris Gunness, who retired from his post in 2019 but who recently returned as a surrogate for UNRWA and who has been an organizational mouthpiece on Al-Jazeera, “to provide cover for donors.”
Speaking at a U.N. press conference on February 22, Colonna said:
“The aim of this important and delicate mission, entrusted to us by the Secretary General, is to enable donors, the largest among them, but in fact everyone, to regain confidence, when they have lost it or when they have doubts, in the way UNRWA operates.”
Also in February, Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claimed at least 12 UNRWA workers directly took part in the atrocities, and a further 30 assisted or facilitated those heinous crimes. He also charged as many as 12% of the organization were affiliated in some way with the various Gaza terrorist organizations.
In April, and as a result of the accusations regarding UNRWA, several countries including the United States, which according to Congress will withhold funds until 2025, ceased sending aid to the organization until the U.N. undertook a deeper investigation. However, many of those countries have resumed funding, including the United Kingdom, whose government has altered from the largely pro-Israel Conservative Party, to the much more critical Labour Party, under Sir Keir Starmer. Canada and Australia – two countries with an active and vocal Palestinian Diaspora community – also quickly resumed their funding.
I want you to imagine something with me. Employees at a company in London, New York, or Paris, were found to have been involved in the kidnap, rape, and/or murder of Muslims/black people.
Do you think this company would survive and crack on as if nothing happened? pic.twitter.com/olCece1JHH
— Khaled Hassan (@Khaledhzakariah) August 5, 2024
Israeli academic Einat Wilf, who has written extensively on the so-called “Right of Return” has been particularly scathing of UNRWA’s role in keeping Gazans and non-Israeli Arabs living in Judea and Samaria, hypnotized by a fantasy for more than 75 years. A political centrist, she is of the opinion – as are most Israelis – the time has come to completely disband the organization as it is not fit for purpose.
Exactly. Focus. UNRWA is trying to pass it off as an aberration. The problem is not a few official UNRWA personnel butchers. It’s that the entire organization forms the ideological infrastructure of the Palestinian forever war against Jews being sovereign in any part of the land. https://t.co/mHWEilCX9r
— Dr. Einat Wilf (@EinatWilf) August 5, 2024
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