The unit for Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) responded on Monday evening to the admission of the UN that some employees of UNRWA, the UN agency for “Palestinian refugees”, may have taken part in the Hamas massacre of October 7.
“The fact that a UN organization was infiltrated by a terror organization should be a concern to all humanitarians. The fact that the UN remains silent about it is also a concern to donating countries,” COGAT wrote in a post on social media site X.
“Support valid humanitarian organizations in Gaza. They are the real backbone of the humanitarian effort,” it added.
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.