The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs notified the United Nations last week that one hundred “terrorist operatives” have been identified as employees of UNRWA, the U.N. relief agency for the Palestinians.
Israel asked the U.N. to terminate these employees without delay.
The letter from Israeli Ambassador Amir Weissbrod to UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini was sent on July 4, but was not made public until Thursday, when media outlets including Fox News and Germany’s Bild obtained copies of it. The editors of Bild were very upset to learn German money might have been used to fund terrorist operatives.
In the letter, Weissbrod noted the presence of Hamas operatives among UNRWA staff has been a “recurring concern” for Israeli officials. In January, the United States and several other countries suspended funding for UNRWA after Israel accused a dozen of its employees of actively participating in the Hamas atrocities of October 7.
Most of those countries eventually resumed funding for UNRWA, citing the desperate need of Palestinians in Gaza for humanitarian aid. Israel’s letter to the U.N. suggested that resumption of funding was a terrible mistake, because UNRWA’s staff in Gaza is still riddled with terrorists.
“In recent months Israel has discovered that hundreds of terrorists, members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) have been employed by UNRWA in the Gaza Strip, some of them holding high-ranking positions in UNRWA or in Hamas,” Weissbrod told Lazzarini.
The Israeli ambassador attached a document listing one hundred names of “terrorists operatives who are currently employed by UNRWA-Gaza,” along with identifying information.
Weissbrod said this list was but a “small fraction” of the Hamas and PIJ operatives working as UNRWA staffers, promised more lists would be forthcoming – and vowed to send the lists to both Lazzarini and UNRWA’s donors.
“Israel expects from you and your organization to immediately terminate the employment of any member of Hamas or PIJ,” Weissbrod wrote. “Their work in UNRWA poses a security risk for Israel, and represents a breach of the principle of neutrality as was mentioned in Ms. Colonna’s report.”
Fox News noted that Lazzarini claimed he was horrified to learn UNRWA employees participated in some of the worst atrocities in human history, and moved fairly quickly to fire those identified by Israel.
“Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution,” Lazzarini vowed in January.
The UNRWA chief’s tune has changed since then. At a meeting of the UNRWA Advisory Committee in Geneva on June 24, Lazarini complained Israel was making “a concerted effort to dismantle UNRWA with the aim of changing the established political parameters for peace in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
“The Agency is targeted because of its role in safeguarding the rights of Palestine refugees, and because it embodies an international commitment to a political solution,” he charged.
“Israel has long been critical of the Agency’s mandate, but it now seeks to end UNRWA’s operations, dismissing the Agency’s status as a United Nations entity supported by an overwhelming majority of Member States,” he said.
“If we do not push back, other U.N. entities and international organizations will be next, further undermining our multilateral system,” he warned.
Lazzarini claimed he has adequately addressed the “serious allegations that several UNRWA personnel in Gaza were involved in the abhorrent attacks against Israel on October 7,” but Weissbrod’s letter and attached documentation would utterly demolish that narrative if Israel’s allegations are proven.
The Bild piece on the Israeli letter advised the German government to begin asking tough questions about UNRWA funding and how the money is used. The Bild noted that the remains of German-Israel hostage Shani Louk were discovered in a UNRWA facility in October.
Louk, 23, was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists from the Nova music festival on October 7, tortured by her captors, and paraded through Gaza as a trophy. Her body was recovered by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in May, along with the remains of two other Nova kidnap victims, in a concrete shaft constructed beneath a UNRWA building.
The Jerusalem Post reported last week that over a hundred Israelis have joined a lawsuit accusing UNRWA of complicity in genocide by knowingly employing Hamas terrorists and distributing terrorist propaganda to Palestinian children.
“Senior Hamas operatives have been in control of the UNRWA education system and its staff union. UNRWA was an active partner in building control systems and centers, and Hamas’s headquarters were inside UNRWA schools and clinics, where missile launchers were set up, in violation of international law,” the Jerusalem Post said.
The lawsuit accuses the U.N. agency of transferring at least a billion dollars to Hamas over a span of years, including funds the terrorists used to purchase the weapons for their rape, kidnapping, and murder spree on October 7.
UNRWA responded to the suit by insisting that it “enjoys immunity from legal proceedings, as do all U.N. officials.”
U.N. Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said on Thursday that Weissbrod’s letter, and his list of a hundred terrorist operatives, should be the last straw for UNRWA.
Neuer reminded Lazzarini that he is already in possession of a dossier proving the chief of the UNRWA teachers’ union, Fathi al-Sharif, is a member of Hamas and a supporter of terrorism. He argued that until Lazzarini fires all of the terrorists identified among UNRWA’s staff, the nations which resumed UNRWA funding after the last terrorism scandal should “not pledge a dime.”
As Neuer pointed out, UNRWA’s 2024 pledging conference will be held in New York tomorrow.
