Israel has accused a dozen United Nations employees in Gaza of participating in Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel, prompting the world body to fire the alleged perpetrators and open an investigation that threatens to tarnish the U.N.’s reputation and jeopardize tens of millions of dollars in United States funding for relief programs in Gaza.
The revelations surrounding the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, are likely to bolster the position of conservative critics of the U.N. in Israel and in the U.S. Congress. They are also likely to complicate efforts by the Biden administration to secure some $10 billion for broader global humanitarian operations in negotiations underway for a supplemental budget that has stalled over a border funding dispute.
The U.S. is “extremely troubled by the allegations,” said U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller in a statement. On Friday, the State Department announced it has “temporarily paused” additional funding for UNRWA, which employed the alleged perpetrators — cutting off the agency’s single largest source of funding in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.
“This is something that the Biden administration would really rather not do,” David Schenker, the Taube senior fellow at The Washington Institute and an expert on Arab politics, told Devex. “They wouldn’t have done this unless they already had some sort of compelling evidence presented … and the question will be whether other donors in the West follow suit.”
After the Trump administration slashed support for UNRWA, U.S. President Joe Biden pushed for its resumption once he took office — and in 2022, the U.S. government gave $344 million to the 30,000-person organization. Today, UNRWA is one of the largest employers in Gaza, Schenker said, employing some 13,000 Palestinian teachers, doctors, engineers, and others in the coastal strip.
The Israeli offensive in Gaza has resulted in the deaths of at least 27,500, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. That includes 152 employees from UNRWA — the largest loss of life in a U.N. operation since the world body’s founding after World War II. Today, UNRWA is on the front lines of the international relief effort, providing shelter to 1.9 million displaced Palestinians in more than 150 shelters. According to the agency, nearly 360 people sheltering in UNRWA facilities have been killed since the Israeli offensive began.
On Wednesday, the latest strike on a shelter — a compound housing 800 displaced people in southwest Gaza — killed 13 people and critically injured 21, the agency reported.
“UNRWA shares the location of all its facilities including shelters directly with Israeli authorities,” the agency said in its latest situation report. “UNRWA received assurances that people inside them would be safe.”
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA commissioner-general, issued a statement saying that to ensure his agency’s ability to deliver assistance, he has decided to “immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members and launch an investigation in order to establish the truth without delay.”
“Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution,” he said. “Anyone who betrays the fundamental values of the United Nations also betrays those whom we serve in Gaza, across the region and elsewhere around the world.”
Lazzarini provided a briefing on the allegations — which he said were brought to him by the Israeli government — to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who said he was “horrified by this news and has asked Mr. Lazzarini to investigate this matter swiftly to ensure that any UNRWA employee shown to have participated or abetted what transpired on 7 October, or in any other criminal activity, be terminated immediately and referred for potential criminal prosecution.”
Still, it’s not the first time the organization has faced scrutiny. In November, Israeli forces said they had destroyed a Hamas tunnel near a UNRWA-sponsored school in northern Gaza. Last month, a recently released hostage claimed he had been held in Gaza by a UNRWA teacher, an allegation the agency said it was “determined” to investigate. And for months, senior Israeli officials have claimed UNRWA is collaborating with Hamas, with many pushing for its dissolution in the Gaza Strip.
“We’ve come full circle back to the Trump administration,” said Schenker. “This, along with perennial reports of corruption within UNRWA … is yet another black mark on this organization that’s been maligned for years.”
The UNRWA was established in 1949 to provide services for the more than 700,000 Palestinians who were displaced during Israel’s founding. Today, UNRWA provides education, health care, and other basic services to more than 5 million Palestinians spread across the Middle East in Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
But the relief agency has been a source of deep frustration for the Israeli government, which says its mandate preserves the illusion that the descendants of the original Palestinian refugees will ever be permitted to return to their ancestral homes.
It’s also been a source of frustration for many U.S. Republicans, some of whom are seizing on the crisis to ratchet up pressure on UNRWA later this month. A House oversight committee has invited a panel of longstanding critics of the relief agency to a Jan. 30 hearing titled “UNRWA Exposed: Examining the Agency’s Mission and Failures.”
“I am appalled–but unfortunately not surprised–that UNRWA employees were involved in Hamas’ October 7th massacre,” Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas and the chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said in a statement Friday.
The Democratic Senate leadership also weighed in, backing the Biden administration’s call for suspending aid to UNRWA until the perpetrators are held to account and prosecuted. “While UNRWA took immediate action in this case, the reports are alarming,” said Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “They serve as a reminder that UNRWA has long needed reforms to its operations as it has taken on a mission for far longer than its mandate imagined.”
At the same time, many in the U.S. national security establishment have viewed UNRWA ultimately as a source of stability, one which absolves the Israeli government of the obligation, particularly in Gaza and the West Bank, to provide basic public services.
The disclosure came on a day when the U.N. was hosting a Holocaust commemoration. It provided fuel to UNRWA’s critics in Israel and beyond.
Israel's U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan, sporting a yellow Star of David cross on his suit, told his U.N. audience that the disclosure reinforced “what we have been claiming for years: that UNRWA employees are collaborators of the terrorist organization Hamas and that the UN has become … a place where the existence of the State of Israel is delegitimized.”
Update, Jan. 26, 2024: This article has been updated with additional comments from U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin.
About the authors
Colum Lynch
Colum Lynch is an award-winning reporter and Senior Global Reporter for Devex. He covers the intersection of development, diplomacy, and humanitarian relief at the United Nations and beyond. Prior to Devex, Colum reported on foreign policy and national security for Foreign Policy Magazine and the Washington Post. Colum was awarded the 2011 National Magazine Award for digital reporting for his blog Turtle Bay. He has also won an award for groundbreaking reporting on the U.N.’s failure to protect civilians in Darfur.
Elissa Miolene
Elissa Miolene reports on USAID and the U.S. government at Devex. She previously covered education at The San Jose Mercury News, and has written for outlets like The Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Washingtonian magazine, among others. Before shifting to journalism, Elissa led communications for humanitarian agencies in the United States, East Africa, and South Asia.
