OAN Staff Blake Wolf
6:13 PM – Monday, August 5, 2024
Nine staff members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNWRA) have been fired for their suspected involvement in the deadly October 7th attack on Israel.
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This is in addition to a previous report back in January that said the agency had fired “several employees” and had launched an inquiry into data provided by Israel. At least 12 employees were discovered to have been directly involved in the attack.
“For nine people, the evidence was sufficient to conclude that they may have been involved in the seventh of October attacks,” Deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said in a U.N. briefing.
The dismissals follow after a recent investigation from the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) into the alleged involvement of 19 UNWRA staff members in the October 7th massacre.
No specific details as to how the UNWRA staff members were involved in the attacks were given, and the records of the remaining staff members in question would also be reviewed.
“For us, any participation in the attacks is a tremendous betrayal of the sort of work that we are supposed to be doing on behalf of the Palestinian people,” Haq said.
The investigation was launched after Israel accused hundreds of UNWRA staff members of being members of Islamic terrorist groups, including taking part in the October 7th attacks.
UNRWA employs 32,000 people, including 13,00 Gazans.
Meanwhile, Israel’s United Nations Ambassador, Gilad Erdan criticized the investigation as a “disgrace” and “too little too late,” after learning of the discovery.
“The investigation ignored the thousands of agency employees involved in Hamas terrorism and the extent of their involvement. Israel has provided the UN with precise details of over a hundred UNRWA employees who are members of the terrorist organization Hamas,” Erdan said.
The UNRWA’s commissioner-general also issued a statement on Monday in regards to the situation: “The allegations were brought to the Agency’s attention in January. In close consultation with the United Nations Secretary-General (SG), I immediately terminated the contracts of the staff in question, in the interest of the Agency, while the SG tasked OIOS to launch an investigation. Additional allegations were brought to our attention in March and April and the concerned staff were added to the OIOS investigation.”
Haq claims that the details of the OIOS investigation was confidential and that the information given to them to support the claims against the UNRWA employees belonged to Israeli authorities: “OIOS was not able to independently authenticate most of the information provided to it.”
When asked again why the nine individuals were released, Haq said: “We have sufficient information in order to take the actions that we’re taking, which is to say, the termination of these nine individuals.”
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