2024-01-31 19:13:00
Despite the belligerent rhetoric, the Israeli government is not working to replace UNRWA, so an activist against the organization tells ‘Davar’, who was exposed to internal government discussions on the matter. who asked to remain anonymous. “We have known for twenty years that UNRWA is involved in terrorism, but until October 7 the Israeli government had no policy against it.”
According to the same source, the information that led to the boycott against the organization is almost lost. “Even after October 7, it was not obvious that they would direct the Shin Bet to investigate the Nohba terrorists regarding the involvement of UNRA, it required a lot of effort. But if they had not done it, we would not now see the international pressure against The organization, although in practice it is part of the Hamas regime which the government decided to collapse.”
The Wall Street Journal published yesterday that according to intelligence transferred to the US, 1,200 of the 12,000 UNRA workers in Gaza are connected to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and at least half of the workers are family members of Hamas operatives.
In recent weeks, Israel has provided the United States and other countries with evidence of the participation of UNRWA employees in the October 7 massacre and the kidnapping of Israelis, according to the New York Times. Because of this, a number of countries have announced that they will suspend the transfer of funds to UNRA. Among these countries are the two largest donors to the organization: the United States, which contributed approximately $344 million to the organization in 2022, and Germany, which contributed approximately $202 million.
Vests of the Hamas Noh’ba force found in UNRA bags in a clinic in Gaza (photo: IDF spokesman)
In the European Union, the third largest donor (about 144 million dollars in 2022) announced that they will examine the issue. Sweden, Japan, France, Italy, Canada and Switzerland, which each contribute tens of millions of dollars a year, have also stopped the transfers. Of the countries that contributed more than $30 million to the organization in 2022, only Norway announced that it would continue the funding.
Despite the dramatic steps, it is not at all certain that this will cause a change in the organization. “If they do an investigation, replace some of the heads of the organization and then go back to transferring the funds, as the Israeli government demands, it will not help anything” says the same source. “This organization should have been disbanded a long time ago, already in 2003 when the use of its ambulances for the purposes of terrorist operations was first documented. There is no such thing as another UNRWA. This organization should be dismantled in a gradual process of six months, and all aid activities should be transferred to the UN organizations.”
The alternative: the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
A senior political official told Zaman Israel today (Wednesday) that the Israeli government does not support the immediate closure of the UNRA agency due to the fear of a humanitarian catastrophe. This is in contrast to the statement of the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud) from two weeks ago that “after the war no There will be UNRA.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz tweeted that “we must make sure that other parties come instead of UNRA”, but without a concrete proposal (Photo: Flash 90)
Foreign Minister Israel Katz demanded a thorough investigation of UNRA’s involvement in terrorist activities, and the dismissal of its senior officials. It is unclear whether this is accompanied by a “tacit consent” to the continuation of the organization’s activities in Gaza after the investigation and dismissal. In a tweet on Network X, Katz wrote: “We must make sure that UNRWA will not be part of the day after in Gaza, and that other factors will come in its place”, but this statement is currently not backed up by a concrete proposal for change.
The USA, Canada, Australia, Finland, Italy and Great Britain announced the suspension of funding to UNRWA after it became clear that some of its employees took part in the terrible massacre on October 7.
We will not give up and demand that the events be fully investigated. The UN should immediately fire the heads of UNRA @UNRWA and open an independent and transparent investigation of everything that happened in UNRA-Hamas…
— Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) January 27, 2024
“The Israeli government acts as if there is no alternative to UNRWA, and this is simply not true,” says the source who spoke to ‘Davar’, “There is a body in the world whose role is to take care of the displaced – the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. There is no reason why it should not finance the hotels to which the displaced were evacuated the Israelis, and will not operate in the Gaza Strip and assist the displaced Palestinians instead of UNRA. But for some reason, no one in the government demands that they intervene – neither for the benefit of the Israelis nor for the benefit of the Palestinians. It’s completely absurd.”
UNRA jobs and services: “Hamas’ ways to pay its operatives”
UNRWA treats Palestinians living in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The request for treated status is done online, contrary to the requirement of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to conduct a face-to-face inspection. Recently, the organization even launched an application that allows registration and receiving assistance via mobile from anywhere in the world.
UNRWA does not deduct from the number of refugees those who leave the country where they received refugee status. For example, out of approximately 490,000 refugees registered in Lebanon, only approximately 250,000 actually live there, but UNRWA’s budget is not offset in direct proportion to this, according to the UNRWA website “A in Lebanon. Many of those who left gained the status of residency or citizenship in other countries, and are still registered as refugees entitled to UNRWA services.
Beyond its involvement in terrorism, critics of the organization claim that, unlike the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees whose goal is to rehabilitate refugees, UNRWA works to preserve and perpetuate refugees. Thus, instead of the number of refugees decreasing over the years, UNRWA definitions transfer refugee status to marriage and offspring. Thus, the number registered with UNRWA as refugees increased from 750,000 in 1948 to 5.9 million in 2022.
Criticism was also heard regarding UNRA’s education system, which educates against the existence of the State of Israel and thus violates the principle of neutrality, which guides the other UN agencies in their actions in conflict zones.
Unlike the other UN bodies, which employ people from different countries and maintain a balance in the mix of workers’ origins, UNRWA employs 20,000 Palestinian workers in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and less than 50 workers from other countries. While the United Nations High Commission for Refugees employs approximately 20,700 workers for the benefit of approximately 108 million refugees and displaced persons, UNRWA employs approximately 30,000 workers for the benefit of 5.9 million patients.
A Palestinian woman and her baby being examined at the UNRWA clinic in the Shata refugee camp near Gaza, January 14, 2018. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)
In an article by Ohad Hamo for News 12, recordings of conversations between members of Unit 504 and residents of Gaza were revealed in which residents of Gaza testify that “those in control, meaning those in charge of the departments or the regional headquarters of UNRA, are themselves Hamas operatives.” Documents published in recent months showed that Hamas receives aid in food and fuel from UNRWA, stores it in secure places and prevents its access to civilians.
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