Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to confirm yesterday that Israel has released an intelligence file alleging that 13 staff members of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNRWA) participated in the October 7 attack from Gaza, and described the aid agency (which has 13,000 workers in the Gaza Strip alone) as “drilled by Hamas”.
According to the report compiled by Israel’s intelligence services, the details of which are already known in the US media, one of the UNRWA workers was a teacher who offered to host Israeli hostages at his home or at schools with the collaboration of more teachers. Another employee of the agency kidnapped a woman, another provided ammunition to the terrorist group and another participated in the attack on a kibbutz where 97 people were massacred.
Although officials of the Biden Administration acknowledged in statements to The New York Times, which advanced the existence of the dossier, that they have yet to ratify the information in the document, they found that the allegations were sufficiently sustained to justify that financial contribution would be interrupted.
In the Israeli espionage report, the thirteen names of those allegedly involved in the affair and their occupations are included. Of these, ten would be members of Hamas and another would be affiliated with another group (Islamic Jihad). Seven of the accused were teachers and another two worked in schools in different positions.
In the document, the movements of six of the defendants during October 7 are described based on phone records. There were calls tapped by Israel’s intelligence in which they allegedly talked about involvement in the attack.
In three text messages they are instructed to report to the assembly points that day and one is ordered to bring the grenades and mortar launcher that he hides at home. The most detailed accusation alludes to the head of a school in Khan Iunis, who is accused of kidnapping a woman in Israel together with his son.
Yesterday, Austria and the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) joined the list of countries that have chosen to cut funding to this UN agency, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Japan. In the European Union, there is division. Countries such as Italy, the Netherlands or Germany (second country in terms of contributions to the agency) have announced that they are cutting funds to UNRWA, France has said that it will also cut them for now, although it did not plan any disbursement soon On the other hand, Ireland or Spain have assured that they will still support the agency pending the results of an internal investigation commissioned by the Secretary General of the UN, the Portuguese António Guterres.
For its part, the European Commission will also wait for the outcome of the investigation. He indicated this in a statement in which he added that he expects the organization to accept an audit by independent experts at the behest of Brussels.
