The UN is still waiting for evidence from Israel, a month after it launched an investigation into allegations against 12 UNRWA staff.
A month after an investigation began on charges of being members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) involved in the Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, the UN said on Thursday that it was still awaiting proof from Israeli intelligence.
His spokesman Stephane Dujarric said during a briefing of accredited journalists in New York yesterday that the Office of Internal Oversight (OIOS) is seeking to gather additional evidence and “compare it with the material collected and held by the Israeli authorities ”, which he “expects to receive soon”.
The Israeli authorities accused 12 of the approximately 13,000 workers in the Gaza Strip (and 30,000 in total) of the UN agency for Palestine refugees of involvement in the October 7 attack launched by Hamas’ military arm in southern Israel, killing more than 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official Israeli data.
Although “to this day, Israel has not provided any evidence” to the agency that its employees were allegedly involved in the attack, 16 countries have suspended their funding, totaling $450 million, the agency’s head, Philip Lazzarini, said recently. , warning that because of this, its operations across the region will face a huge problem “from March”.
The UN immediately dismissed the accused officials and began an internal investigation. At the same time, Secretary General Antonio Guterres commissioned an independent group chaired by the former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna with a mission to evaluate UNRWA and its “neutrality”. Mr. Guterres has said that he considers the Israeli accusations extremely serious and well-founded.
OIOS officials are to travel to Israel to be briefed by the authorities.
UNRWA, which was established by UN General Assembly resolution 302 in 1949, provides aid to people in the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. It mainly manages hospitals and schools.
It is considered irreplaceable as it forms the backbone of the aid system for the approximately 2.4 million residents of the Gaza Strip, where the humanitarian situation is now catastrophic after nearly five months of war.
Source :Skai
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