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Israel’s foreign minister has called for the United Nations’ refugee agency for Palestinians to be replaced following allegations agency staff were involved in the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.
In a social media post, Israel Katz also urged other countries to follow the example of the United States, Australia, Canada, Britain, Italy and Finland in pausing funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
“In Gaza’s rebuilding, UNRWA must be replaced with agencies dedicated to genuine peace and development,” he wrote on X.
He also accused UNRWA of ties to Islamist militants in Gaza.
Fallout from the accusations
Several key donor countries to the UNRWA, including Australia, Canada, the US, Netherlands, Italy, the UK and Germany, said they would halt their funding, following the accusations.
The agency said it had opened an investigation into several employees and severed ties with those people.
Deputy UN spokesman Farhan Haq, asked about Katz’s remarks, said: “We are not responding to rhetoric. UNRWA overall had had a strong record, which we have repeatedly underscored”.
UNRWA has always rejected similar accusations in the past and maintained it is a relief and humanitarian agency.
The head of UNRWA Philippe Lazzarini said on Saturday that nine countries’ decisions to suspend funding was shocking, and urged them to reverse course.
“These decisions threaten our ongoing humanitarian work across the region including and especially in the Gaza Strip,” he said in a statement.
The Palestinian foreign ministry criticised what it described as an Israeli campaign against UNRWA, and Hamas condemned the termination of employee contracts “based on information derived from the Zionist enemy”.
UNRWA was set up to help refugees of the 1948 war at Israel’s founding and provides education, health and aid services to Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.
It helps about two-thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million population and has played a pivotal aid role during the war that Israel launched to eliminate Hamas after the 7 October attacks.
1,200 people were killed in the attacks on southern Israel, with 240 taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory bombardment of Gaza has killed 26,000, according to the Gaza health ministry, with up to 1.9 million of its 2.3 million population displaced.
Announcing the investigation, Lazzarini said on Friday that he had decided to terminate the contracts of some staff members to protect the agency’s ability to deliver humanitarian assistance.
Lazzarini did not disclose the number of employees allegedly involved in the attacks, nor the nature of their alleged involvement.
He said, however, that “any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror” would be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.
During weeks of Israeli bombardment of the Palestinian enclave, UNRWA has repeatedly said its capacity to render humanitarian assistance to people in Gaza is on the verge of collapse.
Hussein al-Sheikh, head of the Palestinians’ umbrella political body the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), said cutting support to the agency brought major political and relief risks.
“We call on countries that announced the cessation of their support for UNRWA to immediately reverse their decision,” he said on X.
The Foreign Ministry in Germany, a major donor to UNRWA, welcomed UNRWA’s investigation, saying it was deeply concerned about the allegations raised against agency employees.
“We expect Lazzarini to make it clear within UNRWA’s workforce that all forms of hatred and violence are totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” it said on X.
The war between Hamas and Israel is the latest escalation in a long-standing conflict.
Hamas is a Palestinian political and military group, which has governed the Gaza Strip since the most recent elections in 2006.
Hamas’s stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state and stop the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, illegal under international law.
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