When the United Nations launched an investigation a decade in the past into whether or not a handful of its staff in Gaza have been members of Hamas, it was not lengthy earlier than a senior U.N. authorized officer within the territory began receiving loss of life threats.
First there have been emails, despatched from nameless accounts, in keeping with three senior U.N. officers primarily based in Gaza at the moment.
Then got here a funeral bouquet, delivered to the primary U.N. compound, labeled with the authorized officer’s identify.
Lastly there was a reside grenade, despatched to the compound with its pin nonetheless inside, in keeping with two of the officers.
The U.N. evacuated the authorized officer, a British lawyer and former army officer, hurrying him to Jerusalem, the three folks stated.
Beforehand unreported episodes like this one, from October 2014, kind a part of the again story to the present disaster embroiling UNRWA, the U.N. aid group in Gaza now sheltering greater than half of the enclave’s inhabitants.
Present and former UNRWA officers say that the company has lengthy taken significantly and investigated accusations of infiltration by Hamas, which seized energy in Gaza in 2007. The company has variously responded to suggestions from Israel, the USA and its personal networks. It was the form of problem, they stated, that each one help teams working in hostile environments confronted, not distinctive to UNRWA, which has labored within the enclave for many years.
Somewhat than addressing such points in a scientific course of, they handled them in a piecemeal method largely in personal, working with officers on the United Nations in New York. Over time, a number of individuals who had confirmed Hamas hyperlinks have been fired or left the company, together with after the 2014 investigation, present and former officers stated.
Israel has lengthy made a broader accusation: UNRWA didn’t go far sufficient to root out Hamas and was unwilling to wash up systematically. It has stated UNRWA is a totally compromised group that’s too weak to guard towards infiltration and must be changed by a extra impartial help group.
Final month, Israel accused 12 UNRWA employees members of collaborating within the Hamas-led raid on Israel initially of the conflict on Oct. 7 or within the raid’s aftermath. It has additionally stated that one in 10 UNRWA staff in Gaza are Hamas members.
These two claims — for which Israel offered some proof to the USA, albeit not publicly — have led not less than 19 overseas funders to droop donations for the company. The lack of funding has endangered UNRWA’s existence when nearly all of Gazans rely upon the group for meals and shelter.
UNRWA’s leaders say the company strives to make sure its 13,000 staff in Gaza uphold requirements of neutrality, recurrently coaching its employees to remain above politics and investigating those that don’t. However they add that it’s inconceivable for UNRWA — like several massive group that attracts its employees from a cross-section of society — to trace the personal political allegiances of all its staff.
“What we need to ensure is that our employees doesn’t have a public political perform, as a result of that may be fully incompatible with the perform of a civil servant,” Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s commissioner common, stated in an interview with The New York Instances on Friday.
However, Mr. Lazzarini added, “Our staff are a part of the social material of Gaza and its ecosystem. And as a part of the social material in Gaza, you’ve additionally Hamas.”
Whereas Mr. Lazzarini fired a lot of the 12 staff accused of connections to Oct. 7, he stated he had not been capable of personally examine the claims, partially due to the dire scenario inside Gaza, and that that they had been fired with out due course of. A separate U.N. investigative unit primarily based in New York is now wanting into the accusations.
In Israel’s view, UNRWA ought to have been much more proactive in defending its neutrality. Israelis have typically stated the group has performed too little to cease Hamas from constructing army infrastructure near its services, and even from utilizing these services to retailer munitions.
To bolster that argument, the Israeli army this week led a gaggle of worldwide journalists, together with two for The Instances, to one of many many tunnels dug by Hamas beneath Gaza to deal with its army infrastructure.
Roughly 20 yards beneath an upscale neighborhood of Gaza Metropolis, the tunnel ran in a southeasterly course from underneath an UNRWA-run college. After passing underneath a serious street, the tunnel ultimately led to a subterranean communications hub, stuffed with servers and pc {hardware}, that lay instantly beneath UNRWA’s sprawling headquarters within the territory.
The journalists entered the tunnel by way of openings that had been created by the Israeli army since its invasion started in late October; earlier than Israel captured the territory, neither the college nor the headquarters contained shafts that offered entry from UNRWA services to the tunnel.
The Israeli army stated that the tunnel was shut sufficient to the floor that UNRWA employees ought to have been capable of hear its development. Additionally they pointed to wires that led into the bottom from a room contained in the UNRWA compound, which they stated led on to Hamas’s subterranean communications hub.
“You need to be very naïve to suppose that the UNRWA personnel didn’t know what was taking place underneath their ft,” not least as a result of the development and upkeep of the tunnel would have required aboveground help, stated Maj. Nir Dinar, a spokesman for the Israeli army who accompanied the journalists.
“However whether or not they knew, or whether or not they didn’t know, additionally it is necessary to say that UNRWA, just like the inhabitants in Gaza, like all of us in truth, are victims of the terrorist group Hamas,” stated Main Dinar.
The Instances couldn’t confirm whether or not the wires, which led into the bottom from a room on the bottom stage of the compound, reached the subterranean servers. The tour of the tunnel was led by the army and The Instances was not allowed to maneuver freely in Gaza throughout the embed.
Mr. Lazzarini stated Israel had not introduced the claims concerning the tunnels to UNRWA’s consideration. He questioned how the company may have been anticipated to know what was taking place so deep beneath the bottom, and famous that the tunnel community — tons of of miles lengthy — prolonged far past simply the world beneath the UNRWA compound.
“I don’t have the capability, army experience or know-how — and even the mandate — to watch what’s beneath town,” Mr. Lazzarini stated.
Extra usually, he stated, UNRWA had little communication with Hamas management, including that he had by no means met Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s chief in Gaza, or his deputy.
“In any humanitarian emergency, we’ll cope with any nonstate actor answerable for a given inhabitants, in any other case you don’t have any entry to the inhabitants,” stated Mr. Lazzarini, who has labored for the U.N. and the Worldwide Committee for the Pink Cross in not less than a dozen nations and territories.
Interplay with Hamas “has all the time been on a technical nature,” he stated. Conferences with the group’s political management occur “perhaps yearly. Simply once we really feel that one thing wants actually to be addressed,” he stated.
Help consultants are skeptical that UNRWA may ever have fully shaken off Hamas’s affect due to the character of working in an authoritarian local weather.
There may be “all the time some type of infiltration,” stated Kilian Kleinschmidt, a former senior U.N. official who helped lead help operations in a number of nations.
“There has all the time been, in each U.N. workplace I do know, any person who’s positioned by some means by the federal government or by the blokes who have been in cost, to know what’s happening inside the group,” stated Mr. Kleinschmidt.
Matthias Schmale, who directed UNRWA’s operations in Gaza from 2017 by way of 2021, described forming a “pragmatic working relationship” with Hamas that was however “overwhelmed with tensions and disagreements.”
Throughout Mr. Schmale’s tenure, UNRWA fired an worker who was a member of the group’s army wing. And Mr. Schmale stated that, after a “shouting match” with a Hamas official, he efficiently persuaded the group to let UNRWA block off a tunnel that U.N. officers had found close to one in every of its faculties. Along with offering shelter throughout wartime, UNRWA operates tons of of faculties and well being facilities throughout calmer durations and offers meals help to greater than 1,000,000 residents.
“Once I say ‘pragmatic working relationship,’ it doesn’t imply agreeing ideologically or justifying what they do. It means creating the area for the place you’re employed,” Mr. Schmale stated. “You possibly can’t simply stroll in as UNRWA and construct faculties wherever you want,” he added.
Mr. Schmale was himself pressured to depart Gaza early in 2021 after a backlash from each Hamas and UNRWA’s personal employees over feedback to an Israeli channel through which he was perceived to reward the precision of Israel’s strikes on Gaza.
Israeli leaders, together with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now need to change UNRWA with a distinct company.
However officers from UNRWA and Israel alike warn that such a change can be inconceivable to enact with out worsening the already dire humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
UNRWA has by far and away the most important pool of help employees on the bottom in Gaza. If the company shuts down, any successor group can be more likely to merely work with the identical staff, making any change beauty, Mr. Lazzarini stated. And absent UNRWA’s college system, which educates round 300,000 Gazan kids, there can be no quick option to get many college students again in school, he stated.
At a latest interagency planning assembly, Ghassan Alian, an Israeli common who oversees the division inside the protection ministry that liaises with Palestinian leaders and help teams like UNRWA, advised fellow Israeli officers that Israel ought to push to dismantle the company in the long run, in keeping with a senior army official current on the assembly.
Basic Alian additionally warned that any effort to shut the company earlier than the tip of the conflict would hurt not solely the civilian inhabitants but in addition Israel’s conflict effort, the army official stated. Israel’s skill to increase its invasion is partly reliant on a practical and unbiased help operation for Gazan civilians, in keeping with 4 officers concerned in Israeli army planning.
