UN investigation says nine UNRWA staffers may have joined in Oct. 7 massacre
“It is too little, too late—ignoring thousands of agency employees involved to various degrees in Hamas’s terror activities.” Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan
(JNS) The United Nations announced on Monday that nine staff members of the scandal-plagued UNRWA organization “may have been involved” in the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel, as its internal investigation into Israeli allegations came to a close.
The U.N. Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) handled the months-long fact-finding investigation in the wake of Jerusalem’s stunning allegations that a number of UNRWA employees had taken part in the atrocities of Oct. 7. The contention had led to 16 countries suspending assistance to UNRWA, the U.N.’s Palestinian-only aid and social-services agency, which has long faced criticism of direct ties to Gazan terror groups and incitement to violence in its schools.
All countries except the United States have since resumed their funding to UNRWA.
OIOS announced it had investigated claims against 19 UNRWA staffers, dismissing 10 of them, including nine for insufficient evidence and one for no evidence.
“In respect of the remaining nine cases, the evidence obtained by OIOS indicated that the UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the armed attacks of 7 October 2023,” the United Nations wrote in a statement. “The employment of these individuals will be terminated in the interests of the Agency.”
Neither OIOS nor the United Nations as a whole has the authority to levy criminal charges “but can impose disciplinary sanctions in response to wrongdoing or take other administrative measures to ensure smooth functioning of the organization,” according to a U.N. statement.
Israel originally laid out accusations against a dozen UNRWA staffers with the number ticking upwards over time. OIOS commenced an investigation on Jan. 29—three days after UNRWA first received relevant information from Israeli authorities. UNRWA announced at the time that it had terminated the employment of all those accused, though at least one was deceased at that point.
Last month, Israel sent an additional list to UNRWA with the names of 108 employees it says have ties to terror groups, though they were not a part of the OIOS investigation.
“The U.N. investigation, which focused solely on 19 UNRWA employees, is a disgrace,” Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, wrote in a statement. “It is too little, too late—ignoring thousands of agency employees involved to various degrees in Hamas’s terror activities.”
The United Nations said on Monday that OIOS investigators met with Israeli officials in Israel “to receive and review information held by Israeli authorities,” including an inter-agency team comprising senior and other officials from various government ministries. PJC
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