UN probe finds 9 UNRWA employees ‘may have’ been involved in October 7 attack
UNRWA has 14,000 staff members in Gaza.
The investigation was launched in January after Israel accused some UNRWA employees of participating in the attack that left 1,200 people in Israel dead. UN investigators were not able to speak with the accused, though some accused responded to written questions.
Some on the nine were fired in January, when Israel made its allegations. Others were fired after new assertions were made this spring, Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), told CNN.
The UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) investigated a total of 19 employees who were accused by Israel of participation in the attack.
“The evidence obtained by OIOS indicated that the UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the armed attacks of 7 October 2023,” OIOS said in a statement. In nine other cases, OIOS said that the evidence was “insufficient” for the employees to be fired, but that “appropriate measures will be taken in due course.” In the final case, “no evidence was obtained by OIOS to support the allegations of the staff member’s involvement.”
In a statement on X, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Nadav Shoshani, said: “9 of your employees might have participated in the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.”
“Your ‘relief’ agency has officially stooped to a new level of low, and it is time that the world sees your true face.”
UNRWA was founded by the UN a year after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, which marked the creation of Israel and the displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes in an event known by Palestinians as the Nakba (catastrophe).
The agency provides a wide range of aid and services to Palestinian refugees and their descendants. It is a major source of employment for the refugees, who make up most of its more than 30,000 employees across the Middle East, and has representative offices in New York, Geneva and Brussels.
In a statement on Monday, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said that his agency’s “priority is to continue lifesaving and critical services for Palestine Refugees in Gaza and across the region, especially in the face of the ongoing war, the instability and risk of regional escalation.”
“UNRWA is committed to continue upholding the fundamental principles and values of the United Nations, including the humanitarian principle of neutrality, and to ensuring that all its staff abide by the Agency’s policy on outside and political activities.”
Cut off from vital funding
The Israeli government in January accused some UNRWA staff members of involvement in the October 7 attacks. The Israeli government did not make their evidence public, nor – according to UNRWA – did they share it with UNRWA. Nonetheless, UNWRA in January said that it had terminated the accused employees’ contracts.
The head of the IDF’s Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence Directorate, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, met with senior US officials in January to share his country’s intelligence on the accused. “We gave them specific names and which organizations they are affiliated with, whether Hamas or PIJ or others, and what exactly they did on October 7th. We showed them that we had solid intelligence from difference sources,” an Israeli official told CNN at the time.
Israel in February released some details about 12 employees whom it accused, including their names, photos and alleged roles with Hamas. The additional details also included screengrabs of what Israel said were two UNWRA employees – a social worker and math teacher – in Israel on October 7.
The defense ministry also provided ID photos of 10 other alleged Hamas members, their positions and alleged involvement in the deadly incursion, but did not provide any supporting evidence to back up their claims. CNN could not independently verify the identity of the men or Israel’s allegations about their involvement with Hamas.
The allegations led to several UNRWA’s most important donor countries to withdraw funding from the agency. Most of those countries have reinstated their funding. The United States – historically, UNRWA’s largest donor – has not.
Israel accused further employees of involvement in March and April.
OIOS investigators met with Israeli officials as part of their investigation and review their intelligence. They also reviewed UNRWA employees’ communications and media reports.
“Because of safety concerns,” they did not meet with the accused UNRWA staff or corroborating witnesses.
“In some cases, however, OIOS was able to request and secure videorecorded statements from the subjects who responded to a series of set questions addressing the allegations of their involvement in the armed attacks of 7 October 2023,” the UN said in a statement.
The investigation into UNRWA employees involved in the October 7 attacks in the Middle East was conducted by the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), which operated across the region where UNRWA has over 30,000 employees. The world is closely watching the situation, as the allegations of involvement have led some of UNRWA's major donor countries to withdraw funding, including the United States, historically its largest donor.
