Hamas terror
UNRWA employee probably involved in kidnapping of Israeli woman
The UN relief organization UNRWA is vital for the survival of the people in the Gaza Strip and distributes food and medicine there, for example – now some countries have stopped their aid payments
© AFP
A school employee taking hostage and a social worker distributing ammunition – were employees of the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA involved in the attack on Israel? The New York Times has now published new details.
The New York Times has reported previously unknown details of Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel. Employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) were probably involved in the attack on October 7th. A UNRWA employees were involved in the kidnapping of a woman from Israel, another was handing out ammunition, and a third was involved in a massacre in a kibbutz in which 97 people died, the newspaper reported on Sunday (local time) with reference to a corresponding Israeli dossier that is available to the US government.
In total, the dossier contains allegations against twelve UNRWA employees. More than half of them were working as teachers or in other functions at UN aid agency schools on October 7th. Of the twelve accused, ten are members of the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas. The employees are accused of having helped Hamas in the attacks on October 7th or of supporting them in the days afterwards. There is currently no confirmation of the allegations by the US government, wrote the New York Times. But Washington considers them credible.
UNRWA has thousands of employees, including in the Gaza Strip
The serious allegations against twelve of several thousand UNRWA employees caused outrage worldwide. After Israel provided the aid organization with relevant information, numerous Western countries temporarily stopped their payments to the aid organization, including the USA, Germany, Great Britain and France. According to its own information, the federal government supported the UN relief organization with more than 200 million euros in 2023 alone.
According to the dossier now evaluated by the New York Times, the allegations are based on information from the Israeli secret service. Among other things, he traced the movements of six UNRWA employees within Israel on October 7th using their phones. Others had telephone conversations monitored in which they discussed their involvement in the Hamas attack. One person was asked by text message to bring rocket-propelled grenades that had been stored in his house.
In the massacre on October 7, terrorists from Hamas and other extremist Palestinian groups murdered more than 1,200 people in Israel. More than 130 hostages are still believed to be held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, including children and women. Israel responded with massive air strikes and a ground offensive. According to the Hamas-controlled health authority, more than 26,000 people were killed.
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The United Nations founded UNRWA in 1949 to help Palestinian refugees. The Palestinians who fled or were expelled in 1948 and their descendants are entitled to their services. According to the organization, there are now around 5.9 million people. UNRWA has more than 30,000 employees, most of them Palestinian. The aid organization employs around 13,000 people in the Gaza Strip alone. It also operates in Jordan and Lebanon, among other countries.
The organization provides basic services such as education and healthcare to Palestinian refugees. Since the beginning of the Gaza war, it has also provided shelter for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people and provided humanitarian aid.