12 U.N. employees participated in Hamas terrrorist attack, Israel says

The allegations against staffers with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees prompted Western countries to freeze funds for the U.N. agency.

The U.N. condemned “the abhorrent alleged acts” and fired nine of the accused workers, who include teachers and a social worker. Two are reportedly dead, and the last is still being identified.

The accusations come after years of tensions between Israel and the agency known as UNRWA over its work in Gaza, where it employs roughly 13,000 people.

Major donors, including the U.S. and Britain, have cut funding.

With the majority of its budget in doubt, and because UNRWA spends contributions as they come in throughout the year, the agency says it will be forced to halt operations within weeks if funding isn’t restored.

Detailed allegations against UNRWA workers

The Israeli document, which has been shared with U.S. officials and was obtained by The Associated Press, lists 12 people, their alleged roles in the attack, job descriptions and photos.

The document said intelligence gathered showed that at least 190 UNRWA workers were Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives.

It said of the 12 workers, nine were teachers and one was a social worker. Seven of the employees were accused of crossing into Israel on Oct. 7. Of those, one was accused of taking part in a kidnapping, another of helping to take away a dead soldier and three others of participating in the attacks.

Ten were listed as having ties to Hamas and one to the Islamic Jihad terrorist group. Two of the 12 have been killed, according to the document. The U.N. previously said one was still being identified.

The allegations have stoked longstanding tensions between Israel and UNRWA. Israel says Hamas uses the agency’s facilities to store weapons and launch attacks. UNRWA says it does not knowingly tolerate such behavior and has internal safeguards to prevent abuses and discipline any wrongdoing.

Even before the latest allegations, the agency’s commissioner, Philippe Lazzarini, had announced that he was ordering an external review of the agency’s operations and its safeguards.

Israel has long been critical of the agency and accuses it of helping to perpetuate the 76-year-old Palestinian refugee crisis. Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he canceled a Wednesday meeting between Israeli officials and Lazzarini, and called on the UNRWA head to resign.

Calls to resume funding

The U.N. says the entire agency should not be penalized over the alleged actions of the dozen workers, who it says will be held accountable. It has called for the donors to resume funding.

A coalition of 20 aid groups, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam and Save the Children, also called for funding to be restored, saying UNRWA’s delivery of humanitarian assistance “cannot be replaced.”

The United States, the agency’s largest donor, cut funding over the weekend, followed by more than a dozen other countries. Together, they provided more than 60 percent of UNRWA’s budget in 2022.

UNRWA provides basic services for Palestinian families who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war. Refugees and their descendants now number nearly 6 million across the Middle East. In Gaza, they are a majority of the population.

UNRWA is unique in the U.N. system because it is only focused on one national group, with refugees from other conflicts falling under the purview of the agency known as UNHCR.

Since the war began, most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have come to depend on UNRWA’s programs for “sheer survival,” including food and shelter, Lazzarini said.

Communications Director Juliette Touma warned that the agency would be forced to stop its support in Gaza by the end of February.

‘Significant gaps’ remain in cease-fire talks

The threat to the U.N. agency came as Israel said cease-fire talks held Sunday were constructive but that “significant gaps” remained in any potential agreement. The talks are meant to bring about some respite to war-torn Gaza and secure the release of more than 100 hostages still held in the territory.

Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan told reporters in Beirut that discussions are continuing but that the group is still insisting on a more permanent cease-fire before releasing any more hostages.

The prime minister of Qatar, which has served as a key mediator with Hamas, was more upbeat, saying U.S. and Mideast mediators had reached a framework proposal for a cease-fire and hostage release to present to the terrorist group. Speaking at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the mediators had made “good progress.”

Israeli forces are meanwhile still battling Palestinian terrorists in different parts of Gaza.

Israel issued an evacuation order to residents in the western part of Gaza City, urging them to head south. The military also said it had battled terrorists and carried out airstrikes in recent days in other parts of northern Gaza.

Terrorists also fired a barrage of around 15 rockets at central Israel for the first time in weeks. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

The war was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw some 250 people taken captive, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel responded with an air, sea and ground offensive that has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

The war has also threatened to set off a wider regional conflict. In the latest example of high tensions, the U.S. announced that three of its troops were killed in a strike blamed on Iran-backed militias in Jordan.

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Jobain reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip, and Jeffery from London.