DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees has fired a number of its employees in Gaza suspected of involvement in the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas and other militants, it said Director on Friday with The United States – the agency's largest donor – has temporarily halted its funding.
The organization, known by the acronym UNRWA, was the main organization providing assistance to the people of the Gaza Strip amid the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza, sparked by the October 7 attack became. UNRWA officials did not comment on the impact the U.S. funding freeze would have on its operations.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said it had terminated the contracts of “several” staff members and ordered an investigation after Israel provided information that they played a role in the attack. The US State Department announced that there were allegations against twelve employees. UNRWA employs 13,000 people in Gaza, almost all of them Palestinians, from teachers in the schools run by the organization to doctors, medical staff and aid workers.
In a statement, Lazzarini called the allegations “shocking” and said any employee “involved in terrorist attacks will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.”
He did not elaborate on the employees' alleged role in the attacks. In the unprecedented surprise attack, Hamas militants broke through the security fence around Gaza and stormed surrounding Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping around 250. Other militants joined the rampage.
“UNRWA reiterates its condemnation in the strongest terms of the heinous attacks of October 7” and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all Israeli hostages, Lazzarini said.
The Israeli attack has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured more than 64,400 others since the war began, the Gaza Strip Health Ministry said Friday. The ministry does not differentiate between combatants and civilians when it comes to the death toll. More than 150 UNWRA staff are among those killed – the highest toll the world body has ever suffered in a conflict – and a number of UN shelters were hit by the bombing.
More than 1.7 million of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes by the war – hundreds of thousands of them crowded into schools and other UNRWA shelters.
Since Israel has almost completely sealed off the Gaza Strip, almost the entire population relies on a small amount of international aid that can enter the area every day. U.N. officials say about a quarter of the population is now at risk of starvation.
The US State Department said it was “extremely disturbed” by the allegations against UNRWA staff and had temporarily suspended providing additional funding to the organization. The United States is the agency's largest donor, providing it $340 million in 2022 and several hundred million dollars in 2023.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, said an “urgent and comprehensive” independent review of the agency was being carried out.
UNRWA was founded to care for millions of Palestinians in the Middle East whose families fled or were evicted from properties inside Israel during the war over the creation of Israel in 1948. Israel refuses to allow refugees to return to their former countries.
Israeli officials and their allies — including in the U.S. Congress — frequently allege that UNRWA allows the teaching of anti-Israel hate speech in its hundreds of schools and that some of its staff work with Hamas. The Trump administration cut off funding for the agency in 2018, but President Joe Biden restored it.
The agency's supporters say the allegations are aimed at defusing the long-simmering refugee issue. Last week, Lazzarini said he would appoint an independent body to examine the claims – both “what is true or untrue” and “what is politically motivated.” He also said the allegations were hurting the agency's already overburdened operations.
Thousands of Palestinians fled the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis on Friday as fighting intensified between Hamas militants and Israeli forces. Families were seen walking along the streets carrying their belongings as smoke rose into the sky above them.
Also on Friday, the Israeli military ordered residents of three neighborhoods of Khan Younis and the refugee camp in the city to evacuate to a coastal area. The military said its troops engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Hamas militants around the city.
The Khan Younis camp, like others in Gaza, was originally populated by Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes during the war over the creation of Israel in 1948, and has since been developed into an urban neighborhood. Hamas's leader in Gaza, Yehya Sinwar, and the commander of the group's military wing, Mohammed Deif, both grew up in the Khan Younis refugee camp.
In the central Gaza Strip, the other main focus of the Israeli offensive, Israeli airstrikes on the urban Nuseirat refugee camp overnight killed at least 15 people, including a five-month-old baby, a journalist from The Associated Press said at the hospital where the victims were were taken.
The intense fighting came as the United Nations' top court ordered Israel to do everything in its power to prevent death, destruction and genocide in Gaza. But the International Court of Justice on Friday stopped the military offensive from ending. South Africa has accused Israel of genocide in its offensive, and the court rejected a request by Israel to dismiss the case, which denies the accusation.
Aid agencies have struggled to get food, medicine and other supplies to the northern Gaza Strip, where Israel's ground offensive was the first target and where Israel says it is now largely in control.
Uday Samir, a 23-year-old Gaza City native, said many of the staples such as flour, lentils and rice are now impossible to find across the city.
“What is available now is animal feed,” Samir said. “We grind it and bake it.”
All supplies enter Gaza in the south, either through the Egyptian-controlled Rafah border crossing or through the Israeli border crossing at Kerem Shalom. Aid groups say fighting and Israeli restrictions have complicated deliveries to the north. When convoys actually head north, supplies are often confiscated by hungry Palestinians before the trucks reach their destination.
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Jeffery reported from London.
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