Israel has not provided evidence that significant numbers of workers with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees are tied to militant groups, but the agency must implement more robust vetting of staff members to ensure neutrality and work to reestablish trust with donors, a
highly anticipated report said Monday.
Based on an examination of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s screening procedures, code of ethics, management structure, staff training and other practices, the independent review group concluded that the agency has “established and updated a significant number of policies, mechanisms and procedures” to uphold neutrality in recent years but is in need of critical reforms.
The U.N. General Assembly established UNRWA in 1949 to help Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes during the creation of the state of Israel and continues to serve more than 5 million people across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
The findings released Monday will largely come as a relief to the embattled agency, which was pitched into an existential crisis in January after Israel alleged that a dozen of its 13,000 employees in Gaza participated in the Oct. 7
Hamas-led attacks [these 12 are being investigated by a different body; they were all fired by UNRWA.] and that more than 10 percent had ties to militant groups. Sixteen major donors, including the United States, promptly suspended funding worth about $450 million, nearly half of UNRWA’s budget for the year.
Responding to the report Monday, Israel alleged — without evidence — that more than 2,135 UNRWA workers belong to either Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and that “one-fifth of UNRWA school administrators are Hamas members.”
On staff vetting, the report said UNRWA shares staff lists annually with host countries and with Israel for East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. The United States also receives the lists upon request. These states are then responsible for raising any red flags — but Israel had not done so since 2011, the report said.