The United Nations on Friday fired 12 of its workers in Gaza and commenced an investigation of them after costs by Israel that they’d helped plan and took part within the Oct. 7 terrorist assault that left 1,400 Israelis useless or captured.
The employees, all males and all employed by the U.N. company that aids Palestinians and recognized by the acronym UNRWA, are topic to a felony investigation, two U.N. officers mentioned.
A U.N. official, briefed on the accusations, referred to as the allegations “extraordinarily severe and horrific.”
Israel, which introduced the allegations to the U.N. earlier this week, has beforehand accused UNRWA, which offers social and teaching programs within the Gaza Strip, of fueling anti-Israeli incitement. The gorgeous accusation and the U.N.’s swift response, nonetheless, distinction with earlier U.N. denials of Israeli allegations.
“UNRWA reiterates its condemnation within the strongest doable phrases of the abhorrent assaults,” mentioned Mr. Lazzarini. “Any UNRWA worker who was concerned in acts of terror can be held accountable, together with by means of felony prosecution.”
The accusations led to swift motion by the US, one of many company’s largest donors, which briefly halted funding to the group. UNWRA has been the principal company overseeing the distribution of support to Gazans amid a rising humanitarian disaster ensuing from the conflict launched within the wake of the Oct. 7 assault.
Mr. Lazzarini mentioned the allegations got here a time when greater than two million Gazans are relying on the U.N. company for meals, drugs and different important support. “Anybody who betrays the basic values of the United Nations additionally betrays these whom we serve in Gaza, throughout the area and elsewhere around the globe,” he mentioned.
Israel and the U.N. have every accused one another of performing in dangerous religion since Israel launched its conflict in Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas-led assault, which Israeli officers say killed about 1,200 folks. The U.N. has accused Israel of slowing the supply of humanitarian support to the embattled enclave, and Israel has mentioned the world physique has promoted Hamas’s propaganda.
These allegations, nonetheless, are much less politically delicate than the accusation that humanitarian staff might have engaged in an act of terror, an allegation being taken critically by the U.N. secretariat, the US and the European Union, UNRWA’s largest donors.
The U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, spoke on Thursday with the U.N. secretary normal, António Guterres, and referred to as for “a radical and swift investigation,” the State Division mentioned. Mr. Blinken additionally advised the U.N.’s chief that the US was asking Israel, which initially made the allegation, for extra data.
UNRWA, or the United Nations Aid and Works Company, is one in all Gaza’s largest employers, with 13,000 staff, and drives a lot of the enclave’s training, well being and meals help operations. Throughout the conflict, it has performed a important function in overseeing the distribution of meals and medical support in Gaza.
United Nations officers have repeatedly mentioned odd residents of Gaza are vulnerable to hunger and are experiencing a spike in infectious illnesses because the climate will get colder.
Josep Borrell Fontelles, the E.U.’s high diplomat and vp of the European Fee, mentioned he was “extraordinarily involved” concerning the allegation that U.N. workers had been concerned within the terrorist assaults. He mentioned that the Fee was in touch with UNRWA and anticipated it to take speedy measures in opposition to the employees concerned.
