At least 190 UNRWA staff are Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives, Israel claims, as the UN aid agency says UK and US decision to halt funding ‘will have serious repercussions in Gaza’

At least 190 UNRWA staff are Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives, Israel has claimed.

An Israeli document that was shared with US officials names twelve people and their alleged role in the October 7 attacks, highlighting specific details such as role, job description and photo. 

While also listing a further 190 workers who it claims were operatives in the attack, but without providing any evidence.  

Of the twelve; it claimed that nine were teachers, one was a social worker, and two have already been killed. 

The accusations against them involving kidnapping, participating in the attack and abduction of a solider, arming themselves with an anti-tank missile and taking photos of the female hostages. 

UNRWA said it does not knowingly tolerate such behavior and has internal safeguards to prevent abuses and discipline any wrongdoing. 

The UN aid agency whose staff are accused of taking part in the October 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel has said the decision by Britain, the US and others to pause their funding ‘will have serious repercussions in Gaza’.

Several countries have paused funding for UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) following allegations by Israel that 12 of its 13,000 staff in Gaza were involved in the attack which killed around 1,200 people and led to 250 others being kidnapped.

In a dossier, which has not been published but has been handed to governments and news organisations, Israel says UNRWA staff took part in killings, kidnappings and arming terrorists during raids on settlements in southern Israel last year. 

Britain, the US, Canada and Australia have been joined by EU members including Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Finland and Austria in pausing the funding for the agency which provides health, aid, shelter and education services to the millions of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

The United Nations has urged the countries to reconsider the pause in funding, pledging that any staff found involved in the Hamas attack would be punished and warning that aid for some two million people in Gaza was at stake.

Juliette Touma, Director of Communications at UNRWA, said the funding pause will have serious repercussions for people in Gaza, and has warned that the agency would be forced to stop its support in the territory by the end of February.

Several countries have paused funding for UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) following allegations by Israel that 12 of its 13,000 staff in Gaza were involved in the attack which killed around 1,200 people and led to 250 others being kidnapped

She told the BBC’s Today Programme that the allegations are ‘extremely serious’ and pointed to the decision of UNRWA’s director to suspend the accused staff members and for an ‘immediate’ investigation to be ordered into the accusations.

‘These accusations, when we became privy to the information about them, firstly we took them very very seriously. We were shocked by the level of these accusations.’

She said UNRWA has not been given the dossier, but that the organisation would report on the UN’s findings into the agency as soon as the outcomes were available.  

However, she also stressed how desperate the agency now is following the decision by some of its largest donors to pause funding to UNRWA.

‘We’re extremely desperate,’ she stressed to the BBC. ‘It’s come at a time when the humanitarian needs in Gaza are growing by the hour. 

‘I was there myself just last week, it’s absolutely desperate. People continue to be displaced, people are hungry, the clock is ticking fast towards famine, and we are doing everything possible to avert us from getting towards famine.

‘But this lack of funding that we’ve been faced with now when at least 10 of the largest donors of the agency have put a temporary pause of the funding – this is going to have very serious repercussions on what is right now, the largest humanitarian operation in Gaza,’ she warned.

Her comments came as the European Commission said on Monday it would review whether it could continue to fund UNRWA) in light of the allegations.

The UN says the entire agency should not be penalised by the alleged actions of the dozen workers, who it says will be held accountable if true. 

It has called for the donors to resume funding. 

The UN agency provides health, aid, shelter and education services to the millions of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria

The damning accusations say the UNRWA employees did everything from a school counselor who allegedly helped kidnap a woman, others who gave out ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades and another that supposedly took part in a kibbutz slaughter that killed 97 people

The allegations have stoked longstanding tensions between Israel and UNRWA.

Israel says Hamas uses the agency’s facilities to store weapons or launch attacks from. UNRWA says it does not knowingly tolerate such behaviour and has internal safeguards to prevent abuses and discipline any wrongdoing.

The agency’s commissioner, Philippe Lazzarini, recently announced that he was ordering an external review of the agency’s operations and its safeguards.

Israel has long been critical of the agency and accuses it of helping to perpetuate the 76-year-old Palestinian refugee crisis. 

UNRWA says it cares for the vast needs of millions of Palestinians across the Middle East that have been sharply exacerbated by the latest war.

The allegations come from a dossier given to the US by Israeli intelligence, which American officials called ‘credible enough’ to justify de-funding the UN agency.

It was put together when officials tracked the movements of a dozen men in Israel on the day of the Hamas attack using their phone records and phone calls, the New York Times reports.

At least three of them were allegedly told via text message to report to evacuation locations on that day, with at least one told to bring along RPGs that he kept as his house, the dossier says.

Those accused are listed by their names – which have not been released – and a full description of their alleged behaviour that day is included in the dossier.

Of those accused, ten are believed by the Israelis to be members of Hamas, while seven were also labelled as teachers, a clerk, a social worker, the storeroom manager and other employees for UNRWA schools. 

A school counsellor from the south of Gaza is believed by Israeli intelligence to have teamed up with his son to abduct an Israeli woman. 

The social worker, from central Gaza, is alleged to have given out ammunition, coordinated vehicles and retrieved a dead Israeli soldier and brought him back to Gaza. 

The UNRWA said Sunday it had fired nine employees over Israel’s accusations, while two others have since died. 

The UN previously said one was still being identified. 

The US Department of State said it was ‘extremely troubled’ by the claims and called for ‘complete accountability’ for those involved in the October 7 attacks.

An aerial view of destroyed buildings as a result of the Israeli attack on Nuseirat refugee camp,  in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on January 26

An aerial view of the tents where Palestinians are trying to survive in difficult conditions after fleeing their homes for safety in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on January 27

Internally displaced Palestinians move past Israeli tanks after the Israeli army told residents of Khan Yunis camp to leave their homes and head towards Rafah camps near the Egyptian border, in the southern Gaza Strip, on January 27

Donors including Germany, Britain, Italy, Australia and Finland have also followed the lead of the United States, which said on Friday it had ‘temporarily paused additional funding’ to the agency while it reviewed the claims as well as the UN’s plan to address concerns.

Japan late on Sunday said it has also decided to suspend additional funding. 

‘In Gaza’s rebuilding, UNRWA must be replaced with agencies dedicated to genuine peace and development,’ Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement, urging more donors to suspend funding.

The organisation is promising a thorough investigation into the claims, even before the explosive nature of the allegations was revealed.

The UK’s Foreign Office also announced on Saturday it would halt future funding of the UNRWA pending a review of the ‘concerning allegations’. 

A statement from the Foreign Office said it was ‘appalled’ by the allegations but remained ‘committed’ to getting humanitarian aid into Gaza.

On Saturday, Hamas slammed Israeli ‘threats’ against UNRWA, urging the United Nations and other international organisations not to ‘cave in to the threats’. 

People walk on a damaged road filled with rainwater amid Israeli attacks on Gaza, on January 27

Displaced Palestinians walk past Israeli tanks after the IDF asked residents of Khan Yunis camp to leave their homes and go to Rafah camps near the Egyptian border, south of the Gaza Strip, on January 26

Palestinians fleeing Khan Younis move towards Rafah amid the ongoing conflict, on January 27

Relations between Israel and the UNRWA, which have been strained for years, deteriorated further in recent days, with the UN agency condemning tank shelling it said had hit a shelter for displaced people in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Yunis. 

The agency said tens of thousands of displaced people had been registered at the shelter and Wednesday’s tank shelling killed 13 people.

Asked about the incident, the Israeli army said ‘a thorough review of the operations of the forces in the vicinity is underway’, adding that it was examining the possibility that the strike was a ‘result of Hamas fire’.

Lazzarini slammed Wednesday’s bombardment as a ‘blatant disregard of basic rules of war’, with the compound clearly marked as a UN facility and its coordinates shared with Israeli authorities.

The Israeli army is the only force known to have tanks operating in the Gaza Strip.

The Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, destroyed vast swathes of Gaza and displaced nearly 85 per cent of the territory’s 2.3 million people. 

The Hamas attack in southern Israel killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and about 250 hostages were taken. 

Before fighting broke out, the UNRWA struggled to meet funding requirements.

The agency’s chronic budget shortfalls worsened dramatically in 2018 when former US president Donald Trump cut support to the agency.

But US President Joe Biden’s administration has fully restored support, providing $340 million in 2022, making it the agency’s largest bilateral donor.

Internally displaced Palestinians move past Israeli tanks after the Israeli army told residents of Khan Yunis camp to leave their homes and head towards Rafah camps near the Egyptian border, in the southern Gaza Strip, on January 27 

Palestinian people holding empty bowls try to reach out for food distributed by volunteers at donation point as Israeli attacks continue in Rafah, Gaza, on January 26

A displaced Palestinian child holds up an empty pot as she waits with others to receive food aid provided by a Palestinian youth group in the Rafah refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, on January 25

Several key donor countries said on Saturday that they would halt their funding, prompting Lazzarini to say it was ‘shocking to see a suspension of funds to the agency in reaction to allegations against a small group of staff’.

Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell praised the agency on Friday for ‘playing a vital role over many years supporting vulnerable Palestinian refugees’.

But he said the bloc expected ‘full transparency on the allegations’ as well as ‘immediate measures against staff involved’.

The Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank, urged donors to reverse their suspension, calling on Saturday for ‘maximum support for this international organisation and not stopping support and assistance to it’.

Johann Soufi, a lawyer and former director of the UNRWA’s legal office in Gaza, said the agency had ‘always had a zero-tolerance policy for violence and incitement to hatred’.

‘Sanctioning UNRWA, which is barely keeping the entire population of Gaza alive, for the alleged responsibility of a few employees, is tantamount to collectively punishing the Gazan population, which is living in catastrophic humanitarian conditions,’ he said.

The accusations against UNRWA staff came after the UN’s top court ordered Israel to do everything it can to prevent any acts of genocide in Gaza.

The International Court of Justice on Friday handed down its first judgement in a landmark case brought by South Africa.

Soufi said the timing of the allegations against the UNRWA ‘raises questions’.