Israeli occupation forces target UNRWA institution, buildings and workers (Reuters)
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) warned that it was "threatened with death" after countries stopped funding it, at a time when an agency report revealed that Israel had forced some UNRWA employees to falsely admit to having a connection with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
UNRWA Director General Philippe Lazzarini said, “The agency is threatened with death, it is at risk of dismantling,” after several donors stopped their funding due to Israeli allegations that some employees participated in the Hamas attack on the seventh of last October.
Lazzarini told the Swiss network RTS, “What is at stake is the fate of the Palestinians today in Gaza in the short term, as they are going through a humanitarian crisis that is completely unprecedented.”
This comes as the Swedish government announced that it would resume suspended payments to UNRWA with a grant of 200 million kroner ($20 million), joining Canada, which announced the return of its support for the UN agency.
Several countries, including the United States and Britain, stopped their funding for UNRWA after accusations from Israel that 12 of the agency's 13,000 employees in Gaza participated in the Al-Aqsa Flood operation.
On the other hand, Reuters quoted an UNRWA report that some of the agency's Palestinian employees who were released from Israeli prisons in Gaza reported that they were subjected to pressure from the Israeli authorities to falsely admit that the agency had links to Hamas and that employees participated in the attacks on October 7.
The report stated that the Israeli army arrested a number of Palestinian UNRWA employees and that the ill-treatment and violations to which they said they were subjected included physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats to harm their families.
Late last December, Israeli Channel 12 revealed a high-level secret report from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in which it expressed its hope that UNRWA would be removed from the Gaza Strip after the war.
According to the secret report of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the document recommends three stages for this step: The first includes a comprehensive report on UNRWA’s alleged cooperation with Hamas, and the involvement of the United Nations with the movement.
The second phase is to reduce UNRWA operations in the Gaza Strip, and finally the third phase will be in which all UNRWA duties will be transferred to the body that governs Gaza after the war.
Source: Al Jazeera + agencies