School counsellor among UNRWA staff involved in 7 October attack, says Israel

A school counsellor employed by the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza was involved in kidnapping an Israeli woman during atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October, according to a dossier drawn up by Israel.

Another employee of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a social worker, helped to bring the body of an Israeli soldier into Gaza and distributed ammunition, the dossier claims, the New York Times reported on Monday.

They were among 12 UNRWA staff alleged by Israel to have taken part in the 7 October attacks or in the aftermath. As a result of the claims, a string of western countries including the US and the UK have suspended funding to the agency, which provides aid to more than 5.6 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East.

Austria and Romania said on Monday they were also suspending funds to UNRWA, and the EU said it was considering future payments to the agency “in light of the very serious allegations”.

UNRWA said it would not be able to continue operations in Gaza and across the region beyond the end of February if funding did not resume. It said the decision to freeze funding threatened vital humanitarian work.

The agency has sacked nine of those accused. Two others are missing and one is dead. The UN in New York has launched a high-level investigation into the alleged acts, which its secretary general, António Guterres, described as “abhorrent”.

Chris Gunness, who was UNRWA’s director of communications for 13 years until 2020, said the funding withdrawal was “collective punishment – like cutting funding to the NHS because of the actions of Lucy Letby”, a British nurse convicted of murdering seven newborn babies.

The Israeli dossier contains the names and jobs of the 12 UNRWA employees and the allegations against them. Ten are said to have been members of Hamas and another affiliated with Islamic Jihad.

Seven of the accused are teachers at UNRWA schools and another two worked at the schools in other roles. The other three are described as a clerk, a social worker and a storeroom manager.

The dossier says Israeli intelligence officers established the movements of six of the 12 inside Israel on 7 October based on phone records. Others made phone calls monitored by Israeli intelligence in which they talked of their involvement in the attack.

Three got text messages telling them to report to muster points on 7 October and one was told to bring rocket-propelled grenades stored at his home, the dossier says.

Gunness said the UN was taking the allegations extremely seriously and UNRWA had “proactively” sacked nine members of staff before the UN’s investigation had concluded.

“In spite of that, donors still decided to go ahead and suspend aid. These are 12 very bad apples among 13,000 staff [in Gaza], 152 of whom have been killed [in the war]. The vast majority of the other 13,000 have carried on delivering humanitarian aid under bombardment.

“Donors are taking what I consider to be collective punishment. It’s punitive and disproportionate, and the people who are going to suffer are women, children, the wounded, the sick, the dying. They are being punished by the British government and others and it’s an utter disgrace.”

Gunness accused Israel of “news management” regarding the allegations. “It is likely the Israelis have had this information for months and, in the interests of justice and closure for the grieving Israeli families, they could have presented it to the UN much earlier. Instead, they chose to put it out the day after the international court of justice’s ruling.”

On Friday the world court ordered Israel to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and to allow humanitarian aid into the territory.

UK foreign minister Andrew Mitchell told the House of Commons that the British government was “appalled by the allegations” regarding UNRWA staff, but welcomed swift action taken by the agency. The UK had given UNRWA £16m since 7 October, but future funding was being paused until the UN’s inquiry was concluded.

UNRWA has cared for Palestinian refugees and their descendants since 1949. It operates in the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan and employs thousands of Palestinians to run schools and medical clinics and deliver aid. In Gaza, almost 1.5 million people out of a population of about 2.1 million are registered as refugees, according to the agency.

Israel has previously alleged that rockets have been fired from UNRWA premises in Gaza. During the 2014 war in Gaza, UNRWA discovered rockets hidden in an empty school and “strongly and unequivocally” condemned those involved.