The United Nations admitted Monday that nine employees of its controversial agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, “may have been involved” in Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel.
The UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services said its probe into 19 UNRWA staffers accused of aiding in the massacre found that nearly half of them likely played an active role in the horror, which left more than 1,200 people dead and another 250 kidnapped.
“For nine people, the evidence was sufficient to conclude that they may have been involved in the seventh of October attacks,” UN rep Farhan Haq 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,” Haq said.
The suspected terror collaborators, all men, will be fired, the agency said — without identifying the suspects or detailing what atrocities they may have participated in.
Israeli authorities in February identified a UNRWA social worker, Faisal Ali Musalam Naami, as among the agencyâs employees who participated in the rampage.
Israel claimed at the time that the worker was caught on video carrying the body of an Israeli soldier into his car and driving away with it that day.
Embattled UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini, who previously slammed the US and other nations who halted donations to the humanitarian group after the allegations against its employees, agreed to boot the nine employees cited in the UN report.
“I have decided that in the case of these remaining nine staff members, they cannot work for UNRWA,” Lazzarini said in a statement.
“All contracts of these staff members will be terminated.”
The UN opened the investigation after Israel handed over documents alleging that at least 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
Some of those employees were described as teachers and social workers — and included an Arabic instructor who was revealed to be a Hamas military commander that helped slaughter Kibbutz Be’eri.
UNRWA n has remained under public scrutiny over its alleged ties with Hamas and the terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad after Israel alleged that around 1,200 of its staffers have some links with terrorists.
UNRWA was also named in a federal lawsuit filed in Manhattan in January alleging that the group “aided and abetted” the Oct. 7 terror attack by sending $1 billion to Hamas meant to aid Gazans but instead used to smuggle weapons and explosives.
The allegations facing the agency have since shaken the worldâs confidence in its ability to provide aid for the nearly 2 million Palestinian refugees caught in the middle of the Israel-Hamas war.
