(United Nations) The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip lacks political “neutrality”, but Israel has yet to provide “proof” of alleged links of some members to “terrorist organizations” like Hamas, experts commissioned by the UN concluded on Monday.
The fact remains that UNRWA is “irreplaceable and indispensable” to the Palestinians, underlined this independent group chaired by former French Minister of Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna and charged by Secretary General Antonio Guterres with an assessment mission on its “neutrality”. “.
This highly anticipated report – the result of nine weeks of work in Israel, the occupied West Bank, Jordan – contains “recommendations” that Mme Colonna spoke to the press at UN headquarters in New York, after months of turmoil for UNRWA triggered by accusations from Israel.
“What needs to be improved will be improved. I am confident that the implementation of these measures will help UNRWA fulfill its mandate,” said Catherine Colonna.
PHOTO HUSSEIN MALLA, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Catherine Colonna
Because “UNRWA remains crucial in providing vital humanitarian aid […] particularly in health and education to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank,” the report acknowledged. “Many see UNRWA as a humanitarian lifeline.”
“Problematic content”
“But despite this solid framework, problems linked to neutrality persist,” noted the Colonna mission.
These are “cases of employees publicly expressing their political opinions, school books with problematic content coming from the host country and used in certain UNRWA schools, politicized trade unionists uttering threats against UNRWA management and disrupting humanitarian operations.
PHOTO MOHAMMAD ZAATARI, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Children chat in the courtyard of an UNRWA school, September 2023.
Catherine Colonna whispered about school books from the UN agency that are anti-Semitic, hostile to Jews or anti-Zionist.
UNRWA, which has more than 30,000 employees serving 5.9 million Palestinians in the region, is accused by Israel of employing “more than 400 terrorists” in the Gaza Strip.
And 12 people are singled out by the Israelis for having been, according to them, directly involved in the unprecedented attack of October 7, 2023 carried out by Hamas on Israeli soil, which left 1,160 dead, mainly civilians, according to a report of the AFP established from official data.
The allegations prompted the suspension of funding from donor countries like the United States, although some have since resumed it.
“Based on a March 2024 list containing Palestinian identity numbers, Israel has publicly claimed that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations. However, Israel must still provide proof of this,” warned the mission of M.me Colonna.
The former French minister clarified to journalists that, according to her report, “UNRWA had not received proof from Israel” of a possible involvement of certain Palestinian employees with Hamas and “not that it does not “There was no evidence” of these possible links.
“Rotten tree”
But Israel criticized the “Colonna report [qui] ignores the seriousness of the problem.
“Hamas has infiltrated UNRWA so deeply that it is no longer possible to determine where UNRWA stops and Hamas begins,” criticized a spokesperson for Israeli diplomacy, estimating that “more than 2,135 UNRWA employees [étaient] members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad.”
“The problem with UNRWA-Gaza is not a few bad apples; it is a rotten and poisonous tree whose roots are Hamas,” he denounced.
Mr. Guterres’ spokesperson assured him that “the Secretary General accepted the recommendations contained in Mr. Guterres’ report.me Colonna” and that an “action plan” would be implemented.
For his part, Philippe Lazzarini, head of this humanitarian agency created by the UN General Assembly in 1949, promised a “strengthening of [nos] efforts and [notre] response to one of the most difficult episodes in the history of the Palestinian people.”
Under pressure for months, last week he defended UNRWA before the Security Council as the “backbone of humanitarian operations” in the Gaza Strip and denounced an “insidious” campaign to put an end to it.
He had warned of a “dismantling” of the agency with a risk of “famine” which already threatens the north of the Palestinian territory where more than 34,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since the start of the Israeli offensive, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.