Intelligence report from Israel
1,200 UNRWA employees are said to have terrorist connections
January 30, 2024, 9:48 a.m
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The Israeli secret service is certain: around one in ten employees of the UNRWA aid organization has connections to the terrorist organization Hamas or other terrorist organizations. They could be both political and military in nature.
The scandal surrounding the alleged involvement of some employees of the UN Palestinian Relief Agency in the massacre by the Islamist Hamas in Israel is becoming increasingly widespread. Around ten percent of all around 12,000 employees of the UNRWA aid organization employed in the Gaza Strip have connections to Hamas or the Islamist Jihad, reported the Wall Street Journal citing an Israeli intelligence dossier. They took part in military or political activities.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken again called for the allegations to be clarified quickly. The UN relief agency plays an “absolutely indispensable role in ensuring that the men, women and children who so urgently need help in Gaza actually receive it,” Blinken said in Washington on Monday.
The UN aid agency fired the employees and wants to investigate the allegations. “UNRWA’s problem is not just ‘a few bad apples’ involved in the October 7 massacre,” the Wall Street Journal quoted a senior Israeli government official as saying. “The institution as a whole is a haven for Hamas’ radical ideology,” the official said. “UNRWA has been in cahoots with the terrorists for a long time,” said Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, to the “Tagesspiegel”. The attackers of the Munich Olympic massacre in 1972 were graduates of UN aid agency schools.
The allegations previously made against twelve UNRWA employees for their alleged involvement in the Hamas massacre had caused outrage worldwide. In response, numerous countries temporarily stopped their payments to the aid organization, including Germany, the USA, Great Britain and France. According to the UN, UN Secretary-General António Guterres wants to meet with representatives of donor countries in New York on Tuesday. He pointed out on Sunday that UNRWA’s current funding was not enough to support the two million civilians in the Gaza Strip in February.