Nine UNRWA staff members were possibly involved in attack on Israel, UN says

(Reuters) -Nine staff members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNWRA) may have been involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, and they will be fired, the United Nations said on Monday.

“For nine people, the evidence was sufficient to conclude that they may have been involved in the seventh of October attacks,” Deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said

He was referring to findings of the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services, which he said had completed its investigation into the alleged involvement of 19 UNRWA staff members in the attacks.

“OIOS made findings in relation to each of the 19 UNRWA staff members alleged to have been involved in the attacks,” he said.

“In one case, no evidence was obtained by OIOS to support the allegations of the staff member’s involvement, while in nine other cases, the evidence obtained by OIOS was insufficient to support the staff member’s involvement,” he said.

Haq said all the nine individuals who the investigation concluded may have been involved were men. He did not give details of what they may have done, but said:

“For us, any participation in the attacks is a tremendous betrayal of the sort of work that we are supposed to be doing on behalf of the Palestinian people.”

The United Nations launched the investigation after Israel charged that 12 UNRWA staff took part in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks which triggered the Gaza war.

Israel stepped up its accusations in March, saying over 450 UNRWA staff were military operatives in Gaza terrorist groups. UNRWA employs 32,000 people across its area of operations, 13,000 of them in Gaza.

UNWRA said in March that some employees released into Gaza from Israeli detention reported having been pressured by Israeli authorities into falsely stating that the agency has Hamas links and that staff took part in the Oct. 7 attacks.