Unrwa's impossible defense in the face of Israel's opaque accusations

Highlights: UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has been in turmoil since it revealed that it had dismissed twelve of its employees accused of being involved in Hamas attacks. Since then, 16 countries – including the main donors, the United States and Germany – have announced that they will suspend their funding to UNRWA until the outcome of the investigation. The UN, for its part, announced on Monday February 5 the creation of an independent committee to assess the "neutrality" of the agency and determine whether it is doing everything in its power to ensure its neutrality.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has been in turmoil since it revealed, at the end of January, that it had dismissed twelve of its employees accused of being involved in the attacks...

The case begins on January 18. A senior Israeli diplomat informs Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), that Israel has evidence that some agency staff are involved in Hamas attacks in October 7, which left more than 1,100 dead.

Four days later, Philippe Lazzarini went to New York to inform the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, and the American government, the main donor of UNRWA, remembers Juliette Touma, communications director of the agency UN. He also has "a series of telephone interviews with several of the major donors," she continues.

On the morning of January 26, UNRWA finally made public its decision to dismiss several staff members implicated by Israel – an unprecedented measure – because these allegations "seriously jeopardized the reputation of the agency and the humanitarian operation in Gaza", insists Juliette Touma. In the process, the UN announced the opening of an investigation.

“We were shocked and we took this seriously because these are very serious allegations,” she insists. “So we made the decision to disseminate the information ourselves rather than having to respond to leaks,” she explains, noting that the UN agency then based itself on information from its Israeli source, communicated verbally, without any evidence being shared.

Since then, 16 countries – including the main donors, the United States and Germany – have announced that they will suspend their funding to UNRWA until the outcome of the investigation. For their part, France and the EU say they are waiting for these conclusions to decide on a possible cessation of funding.

Unrwa, which employs 30,000 people, most of them Palestinian, helps nearly six million Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza but also in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, and is financed almost entirely by contributions. state volunteers. In the Gaza Strip alone, it operates essential government services, including 278 schools and 22 primary health centers, and provides food to the nearly two million people besieged by Israel since the beginning of October.

Also read: UNRWA in turmoil: what is the future of the agency for Palestinian refugees?

“Approximately $440 million in funding at risk”

“Around $440 million in funding is at risk,” estimates Juliette Touma, adding that UNRWA could run out of funds by the end of February if donors continue to freeze their funds.

The decision to suspend aid to UNRWA was described as "shocking" by Philippe Lazzarini, who warns of the situation of Gazans. “It is shocking to see the suspension of funds in response to allegations against a small group of employees,” given the actions already taken and the role of the agency on which “two million people depend for their bare survival” in Gaza, reacted the head of the agency in a press release.

The UN, for its part, announced on Monday February 5 the creation of an independent committee to assess the "neutrality" of the agency and determine whether it "is doing everything in its power to ensure its neutrality and respond to the accusations of serious abuse where applicable. Led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, the group is due to begin its work on February 14 and must submit an interim report to Antonio Guterres by the end of March. The final report, which will be made public, is expected at the end of April.

A summary of the leaked Israeli dossier

So far, however, Israel has not shared its entire intelligence file with UNRWA or with the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), the UN legal body charged with leading the investigation. internal.

“I don’t think we need to give details about our intelligence sources,” said Lior Haiat, a spokesperson for the Israeli Foreign Ministry. "This would amount to revealing our sources and our operations. We have already given information to UNRWA about their employees who are also members of Hamas."

"UNRWA thinks we can provide them with sensitive intelligence data while some of their employees work for Hamas? Are you serious? Why don't we invite Hamas to come and sit at our table and take note of all the information we have?”, he quipped.

A six-page summary of the Israeli file was, however, leaked to a handful of media outlets, including France 24. It gives the names of the twelve UNRWA staff members implicated by the Israeli authorities. Among them, two of the accused are dead and another is missing.

The document also details the accusations against them ranging from the kidnapping of Israelis to participation in the massacre on Kibbutz Be'eri. The first man on the list, a “UNRWA school counselor”, allegedly entered Israeli territory to kidnap an Israeli woman with the help of her son.

In total, around 190 Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad agents also work for UNRWA, according to the document.

Read alsoKidnapping, attack on a kibbutz... Israel details its accusations against UNRWA

All these allegations are drawn, in part, from “information from intelligence services, documents or identity cards seized during the fighting,” the text specifies. “This evidence of the involvement of UNRWA personnel includes phone tracking that shows where these employees were on October 7, as well as video footage collected by the Israel Defense Forces [the Israeli army, editor’s note]” , detailed the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to France 24.

If these documents were not provided to UN investigators, "it is obvious that the Israeli authorities would not have acted in this way if they had not received evidence", also insists Joshua Lavine, spokesperson for the Israeli mission to the UN.

“I am not surprised that members of UNRWA are also members of terrorist organizations,” he continued. “Meetings have already taken place in the past between the Israeli mission and UN officials to discuss this issue.”

Towards a long investigation

Today, donors are demanding a rapid investigation before resuming their funding, but according to several UN sources, the investigations could take up to a year.

Former principal investigator for the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services, Vladimir Dzuro, who notably led a major investigation into the leadership of UNRWA, recalls that the objective is generally to complete investigations within six months, but that a realistic time frame is rather six to twelve months, depending on the complexity of the allegations.

"I do not believe that a professional investigation into allegations of this nature, with the quality required by the circumstances, can be carried out in four weeks", i.e. before UNRWA funds are exhausted, he said. he reacted. “It is also unlikely that UN investigators will be able to conduct a thorough investigation in an active war zone,” he noted.

For her part, the current director of BSCI investigations, Suzette Schultz, has remained very discreet. Our team is “pursuing various lines of inquiry” and “several member states likely to hold relevant information” have been contacted, she declared in an email to France 24.

Faced with the slowness of the process and while the population of Gaza is in the grip of an acute humanitarian crisis, several voices are being raised to denounce the consequences of freezing UNRWA funding. “We should not collectively punish UNRWA. We should not collectively punish millions of people. We must distinguish between what individuals may have done and what UNRWA represents,” stressed Espen Barth Eide , Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

“These donor countries made this decision without irrefutable proof and they will have to be investigated because this choice, according to humanitarian experts, will cause mass famine,” denounced Chris Gunness, former spokesperson head of UNRWA from 2007 to 2020. “This file perfectly illustrates why donors must isolate humanitarian decision-making from politics,” he insisted.

Especially since at the time when UNRWA found itself under fire from criticism, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) mentioned a "plausible risk of genocide" in Gaza and ordered the application of the Convention for the Prevention and repression of the crime of genocide. "We can also legitimately wonder why these allegations surfaced at the time of the ICJ ruling which, among other things, underlined the need for immediate and massive delivery of humanitarian aid, which cannot be done without UNRWA", raised Matthias Schmale, director of UNRWA in Gaza from 2017 to 2021.

UNRWA in Israel's crosshairs

Even before October 7, Israel had already long doubted the credibility of UNRWA and was considering its dismantling. An Israeli government plan made public in 2017 described a process for dissolving UNRWA and transferring its responsibilities to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Last month, a classified report, written by the Israeli Foreign Ministry and leaked by the Israeli press, also presented a plan to dismantle UNRWA in Gaza in three stages. With, as a first step, revealing the cooperation between Unrwa and Hamas.

But, even if the Gaza Strip has come under Hamas control since 2007, the group has never been involved in the administration of the UN agency in the enclave, defends Matthias Schmale, former director of UNRWA at Gaza.

“In the four years I was there, I only had to fire one staff member because we discovered that he was an active member of the Al-Qassam Brigades,” relates he. “It was the exception, not the norm.”

"Hamas leaders are not involved in UNRWA's basic services, which include education and health," he insists. "It is not surprising that Hamas leaders from time to time make known their views on what UNRWA does and how it does it. But it has generally respected the fact that it cannot not interfere in the operation of the agency."

“We were able to carry out our work in accordance with United Nations standards and rules,” he concludes.

Under pressure

Faced with the turmoil in which the UN agency is plunged, its director, Philippe Lazzarini, went to the Gulf countries on Monday in search of other sources of financing.

“This is a very serious crisis for the UN,” recognizes Juliette Touma. “This is probably one of the biggest ones we've ever had to go through, involving the oldest and one of the most important agencies of the United Nations.”

“I saw how schools can be a sanctuary for children in a place like Gaza where poverty, unemployment, despair and the blockade reign,” she continued, visibly moved. “That’s Unrwa.”