The Foreign Ministry responded on Monday to the results of a UN probe which acknowledged that employees of UNRWA, the UN agency for “Palestinian refugees”, may have been involved in Hamas’ October 7 massacre in Israel.
“It is too little too late, but the truth is starting to come to light. The probe by the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) proves that Israel's assertions about the involvement of UNRWA employees in the October 7 massacre are credible and true. And that's just the tip of the iceberg,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“In addition to the nine employees that the UN's investigative team determined were involved in the October 7 massacre, other workers - about whom the team claimed there was insufficient evidence - were also involved in the massacre. They are members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the UN must fire them immediately and not sweep the issue under the rug.”
“But the phenomenon is much more serious: many hundreds of UNRWA employees are Hamas and PIJ operatives,” the Foreign Ministry continued.
“In the meantime, Israel has given the UN an additional list of a hundred UNRWA employees who are Hamas operatives, but the UN is deliberately delaying their cases and not addressing it. It is not just a few rotten apples, as UN Secretary-General Guterres is trying to claim: UNRWA Gaza is a rotten tree infected entirely with terrorist operatives.”
“Israel calls on countries not to transfer funds to UNRWA Gaza, as the funds may go to terrorist elements.”
UNRWA is part of the problem and not part of the solution, and anyone who seeks the best interests of Israel, the Gaza Strip and the region should act to replace UNRWA's activities with other agencies,” the Foreign Ministry concluded.
Earlier on Monday, the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) published the results of its investigation into reports that 19 UNRWA employees participated in the Hamas massacre of October 7.
The OIOS investigation found that it had obtained no evidence regarding one of the UNRWA employees, insufficient evidence regarding nine of the employees, enough evidence to say that nine UNRWA employees "may" have participated in the massacre.
The employment of the nine employees has been terminated "in the interest of the agency."
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, responded to the results of the investigation and said, "The UN investigation, which focused solely on 19 UNRWA employees, is a disgrace! It is too little, too late – ignoring thousands of agency employees involved to various degrees in Hamas’s terror activities." stated.
He noted that "Israel provided the UN with detailed information regarding over 100 UNRWA employees who were direct members of the terrorist organization Hamas. Despite Israel's extensive cooperation with, and provision of information to, the UN, its investigation's conclusions are yet another disgrace."
"It still refuses to recognize the reality of its agency. And if that wasn't enough, the UN Secretary General recently chose to award UNRWA’s Gaza division his prestigious Secretary General's Award for 2023 – the very group with such terror ties!”
Israel said back in January that UNRWA staff participated in the October 7 Hamas attacks. In the weeks that followed, numerous donor states suspended or paused some $450 million in funding to UNRWA, though some have since resumed funding to the agency.
Israel said that the UNRWA workers who participated in the Hamas massacre kidnapped a woman, handed out ammunition and actively took part in the massacre at Kibbutz Be’eri, where 97 people were murdered.
After Israel presented the accusations against the UNRWA staff, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced the creation of a review group, headed by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, to look into the Israeli allegations.
The group recently released its report which found neutrality-related issues" in UNRWA but also claimed that Israel had yet to provide evidence for allegations that a significant number of its staff were members of terrorist organizations.