Antonio Guterres
The head of the United Nations has promised to hold to account “any UN employee involved in acts of terror” after allegations that some refugee agency staff members were involved in the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel.
But Antonio Guterres implored governments to continue supporting the UN refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) after nine countries suspended their funding.
“Any UN employee involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution,” Mr Guterres said in a statement.
“The Secretariat is ready to cooperate with a competent authority able to prosecute the individuals in line with the Secretariat’s normal procedures for such cooperation.
“The tens of thousands of men and women who work for UNRWA, many in some of the most dangerous situations for humanitarian workers, should not be penalised. The dire needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met.”
In his first direct comments on the issue, the UN chief gave details about the UNRWA staff implicated in the “abhorrent alleged acts”.
Of the 12 implicated, he said, nine had been terminated, one was confirmed dead and the identities of the other two were being clarified.
The UK, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland on Saturday joined the US, Australia and Canada in pausing funding to the aid agency, a critical source of support for people in Gaza, after the allegations by Israel.
“While I understand their concerns – I was myself horrified by these accusations – I strongly appeal to the governments that have suspended their contributions to, at least, guarantee the continuity of UNRWA’s operations,” Mr Guterres said.
On Saturday, the head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, said the decision to pause funding for the aid agency was “shocking”.
“These decisions threaten our ongoing humanitarian work across the region including and especially in the Gaza Strip,” Mr Lazzarini said.
“UNRWA is the primary humanitarian agency in Gaza, with over two million people depending on it for their sheer survival.
“Some 3,000 core staff out of 13,000 in Gaza continue to report to work, giving their communities a lifeline which can collapse anytime now due to lack of funding.”
He suggested UNRWA would be “forced to suspend its humanitarian response” if funding was not reinstated.
In the wake of the allegations, the UK Foreign Office said it was “temporarily pausing any future funding of UNRWA whilst we review these concerning allegations”.
It said it was “appalled” by the claims, adding: “We remain committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it.”
It comes after a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was “documented, clear and ironclad” information showing the 12 UNRWA staff members were part of the Hamas force that broke into Israel and killed 1,200 civilians.
Mark Regev said a lot of the information that led to the accusations was shared by Hamas on social media.
“Hamas went live on social media and boasted a lot of the material, so you actually see the faces and the people involved in a lot of the crimes,” he told Sky News.
Mr Regev added the alleged UNRWA staff involvement in Hamas’s operations was “not an aberration” and that this investigation was “just the tip of the iceberg”.
Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz has said UNRWA should be replaced once fighting in the enclave dies down.
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Ordinarily, no rational government should make a decision as pivotal as stopping aid to UNRWA based on “facts” that have, at most, a probability of 0.0905% of being true and which was presented by just one side to a dispute; neither should they take decisions (administration of punishment, in this case) before all the facts are in and investigations completed. To put this situation in proper AND CLEARER context, it is estimated that between 30000 – 33000 staff work for UNRWA in its entirety, and about 13000 of them live and work locally in Gaza ; and , only 12 of such staff have so far been alleged to have participated in the October 7 attacks on Israel, some of who were said to have used official UNRWA equipment during the attack. If we use that well-known infidelity rule-of-the-thumb that the Jews themselves gave the world, to wit that, we should expect a Judas in every twelve; then we should normally expect to have just about 1000 UNRWA staff who would go rogue and betray their calling as humanitarians, but here we have only 12 (.09% of the "expected figure") who actually did. Hence, I think it is unscientific, an overreaction and an attempt at making a mountain out of a mole hill for otherwise rational and scientifically-minded western countries to hastily arrive at the critical decision to freeze aid to UNRWA, based on this rather minuscule (and as yet uninterrogated) evidence and even more so when most of the UNRWA staff involved have not yet been shown to be in a position to significantly influence policy and decision . This whole unscientific exercise appears like Israel's age-long agenda of destroying UNRWA in the naive assumption that by doing so, she will snuff out the refugee problem: based on the thinking that once UNRWA is killed, then no Palestinian will be able to claim refugee status anymore, thus "neatly" taking care of the refugee issue.
Sadly, we here again see our “friends” in the west digging in on their complicity, by pandering to Israel’s vengefulness. These dark moments will surely pass, and when it is all done, let not our western friends come to Africa to preach to us “human rights”, “freedom”, “rule-based order”, “democracy”, “rule of law”, “rational and scientific decision making”, and all those lofty ideals they often accuse us of not adhering to; because, we will remind them of where they stood, at this critical time when they should have stuck to, and stood by these ideals.