UNRWA Fires 9 Employees After Review Finds Possible Links to Oct. 7 Attacks

Last updated on August 7th, 2024 at 04:27 pm

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has fired nine of its staff members after a U.N. internal investigation concluded they may have taken part in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel.

The U.N.’s internal affairs arm, the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), launched an investigation earlier this year into allegations that 19 UNRWA staff members took part in the attacks.

“In one case, no evidence was obtained by OIOS to support the allegations of the staff member’s involvement. That staff member has rejoined the Agency,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said of the OIOS investigation in an Aug. 5 press statement.

Lazzarini said the OIOS investigation produced insufficient evidence to demonstrate nine other UNRWA staff may have been involved in the Oct. 7 attack. Of the remaining nine employees under suspicion, Lazzarini indicated OIOS found stronger but still inconclusive evidence of their involvement in the attack.

“For the remaining nine cases, the evidence – if authenticated and corroborated – could indicate that the UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the attacks of 7 October,” Lazzarini said. “I have decided that in the case of these remaining nine staff members, they cannot work for UNRWA. All contracts of these staff members will be terminated in the interest of the Agency.”

Lazzarini insisted he took corrective actions in January when the Israeli government first raised allegations his agency’s employees took part in the Oct. 7 attacks. Lazzarini said he immediately terminated contracts with the accused staff members.

The firings mark the latest development in UNRWA’s part in the decades-old Israel-Palestine conflict. The U.N. agency’s mission is to assist Palestinians displaced during the founding of Israel. The Israeli government and international observers have long viewed the agency with suspicion, even before Oct. 7.

In 2004, then-UNRWA Commissioner-General former Peter Hansen told CBC he suspected Hamas members were on the agency payroll, but said he didn’t see that as a crime. Hansen argued that because Hamas is a political party within Palestinian society, not all Hamas members are necessarily militants.

UNRWA has also faced past allegations that Hamas is influencing their operations and the education they provide to Palestinian children. In 2014, Motesem al-Minawi—the head of the Gaza education ministry under the Hamas-controlled Gazan government—said they would reject certain U.N. textbooks being sent to UNRWA schools.

As allegations emerged of UNRWA employees taking part in the Hamas attacks, several countries withdrew financial support for the U.N. agency.

Austria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, the United States, Iceland, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, and Australia all halted funding for UNRWA. All but the United States have since restored their UNRWA funding. U.S. funding for UNRWA remains on hold until at least March 2025.