US says ‘fundamental changes’ needed before it resumes funding of UN agency

UNITED NATIONS - The United States on Jan 30 said the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees needs to make “fundamental changes” before Washington will resume funding that was halted over Israeli accusations that

some agency staff took part in the Oct 7 attack by Hamas militants.

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield welcomed a UN inquiry into the accusations against staff at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and a planned agency review. She also said the US was seeking more details from Israel about the allegations.

She said: “We need to look at the organisation, how it operates in Gaza, how they manage their staff, and to ensure that people who commit criminal acts, such as these 12 individuals, are held accountable immediately so that UNRWA can continue the essential work that it’s doing.”

The accusations became public on Jan 26 when UNRWA announced it had fired some staff after Israel provided the agency with information.

An Israeli intelligence dossier, seen by Reuters, alleges that some 190 UNRWA employees, including teachers, have doubled as Hamas or Islamic Jihad militants. It has names and pictures for 11 of them.

The dossier said one of the 11 is a school counsellor who helped his son abduct a woman during the Hamas infiltration in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 253 kidnapped.

Another, a UNRWA social worker, is accused of unspecified involvement in the transfer to Gaza of a slain Israeli soldier’s corpse and of coordinating the movements of pickup trucks used by the raiders and of weapons supplies.

A third Palestinian in the dossier is accused of taking part in a rampage in the Israeli border village of Beeri, 10 per cent of whose residents were killed.

A fourth is accused of participating in an attack on Reim, the site of both an army base that was overrun and a rave where more than 360 revellers died.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Jan 28 that of the 12 people implicated, nine were fired, one is dead, and the identities of the remaining two were being clarified.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had described the allegations as “highly credible” and “deeply, deeply troubling”.

The US – the UNRWA’s biggest donor – temporarily paused its funding, along with a cascade of other countries. US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Jan 30 that Washington provides US$300 million (S$402 million) to US$400 million a year.

He said that in the current fiscal year, which began in October, the US had so far provided about US$121 million to UNRWA.

Mr Guterres met dozens of UNRWA donors in New York for more than two hours on Jan 30 to discuss the UN action being taken in response to the Israeli allegations and hear concerns. Several ambassadors described the meeting as constructive.

He appealed to countries who had suspended UNRWA funding to reconsider and to “other countries, including those in the region, also to step up to the plate”, Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour told reporters after the meeting.

China’s UN Ambassador Zhang Jun said Mr Guterres shared information with donors about the individual accusations made against UNRWA staff.

“We are at a very critical moment in coping with the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the war is still going on... we should not allow these individual cases to dilute our attention in pursuing a ceasefire,” Mr Zhang told reporters.

‘No substitution’

The Palestinians have accused Israel of falsifying information to tarnish UNRWA.

Mr Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric on Jan 30 said Israel has not yet shared the intelligence dossier with the UN.

UNRWA employs 13,000 people in Gaza, running the enclave’s schools, its primary healthcare clinics and other social services, and distributing humanitarian aid.

“Every year, UNRWA shares its list of staff with the host countries where it works,” said Mr Dujarric. “For the work that it does in Gaza and the West Bank, UNRWA shares the list of staff with both the Palestinian Authority and with the Israeli government, as the occupying power for those areas.”

Earlier on Jan 30, the UN Security Council expressed concern about the “dire and rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation” and urged all parties to work with UN Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza, Ms Sigrid Kaag.

The statement by the 15-member council came after Ms Kaag briefed the body behind closed doors for the first time since she was appointed about a month ago. She said there was “no substitution” for the humanitarian role of UNRWA.

“There is no way that any organisation can replace or substitute the tremendous capacity, the fabric of UNRWA, the ability and their knowledge of the population in Gaza,” she told reporters after the briefing. REUTERS