UN acknowledges possible involvement of its agency's staff in Hamas attack on Israel
Illustrative photo: UNRWA staff could be Hamas fighters (Getty Images)
Nine employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) may have been involved in the Hamas militant attack on Israel last October, according to The Times of Israel.
The Office said that it had completed an investigation into 19 employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East who were suspected of participating in Hamas' attack on Israel.
The investigation found that in nine cases "the evidence obtained by OIOS indicated that the UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the armed attacks of 7 October 2023".
“The employment of these individuals will be terminated in the interests of the Agency,” the statement says.
At the same time, in the remaining nine cases, the evidence of involvement in the attack was insufficient, and in one case there was no evidence.
What preceded it
In January, Reuters reported that Israel accused 190 staff members of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) of involvement in the abduction and murder of Israelis during the Hamas attack in 2023.
One of them was suspected by Israel of participating in the attack on the border village of Be'eri, where a tenth of the village's residents were killed.
Recently, the leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was eliminated in Iran. The Iranian authorities accuse Israel of this, though Tel Aviv has not confirmed it. For more details on Haniyeh's death, see the material by RBC-Ukraine.
