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.
Shortly after the UN announcement, Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani posted on social media platform X, saying “Your ‘relief’ agency has officially stooped to a new level of low and it is time that the world sees your true face.”
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The UN’s Haq said the United Nations investigation had made findings in relation to 19 UNRWA staff members. Apart from those who may have been involved in the attack, no evidence was obtained to support allegations of one staff member’s involvement, while in the other cases the evidence was insufficient to support their involvement.
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 October 7 attacks.
When pressed on why the UN was acting against nine, Haq said: “We have sufficient information in order to take the actions that we’re taking, which is to say, the termination of these nine individuals.”
Asked if this meant the UN considered that the nine were “likely or highly likely” to have been part of the attacks, he replied: “That’s a good way of describing it.”
Reuters
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