Jerusalem:
Israel’s navy on Monday accused the United Nations company for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, of using “over 450 terrorists” belonging to teams together with Hamas.
The allegation heightens Israel’s marketing campaign towards the company which is on the centre of efforts to offer humanitarian reduction in Gaza, the place help teams warn of looming famine after almost 5 months of struggle between Israel and Hamas.
“According to intelligence, over 450 terrorists belonging to terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip, mainly Hamas, are also employed by UNRWA,” a navy assertion stated.
UNRWA employs round 30,000 individuals within the occupied territories, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria — with about 13,000 workers within the Gaza Strip.
The navy additionally launched what it stated had been recordings of “a terrorist working as an Arabic teacher at an UNRWA school” who’s “describing his entry into Israeli territory and stating that he is holding female Israeli hostages” through the October 7 assault by Hamas which began the struggle.
AFP couldn’t independently corroborate the claims made within the assertion.
UNRWA has been on the centre of controversy since Israel accused a few dozen of its staff of involvement within the October 7 Hamas assault on southern Israel, which resulted in about 1,160 deaths, most of them civilians, in line with an AFP tally.
A number of nations — together with the US, Britain, Germany and Japan — suspended funding to UNRWA following the Israeli allegations. However the European Fee, recognising steps taken by the UN, stated Friday it will launch 50 million euros ($54 million) in UNRWA funding.
Phillipe Lazzarini, the top of UNRWA, has stated that Israel offered no proof towards his former staff.
The United Nations fired the workers accused by Israel and has begun an inner probe.
Israel’s newest accusations towards UNRWA got here on the identical day Lazzarini was set to defend his organisation’s work on the UN Common Meeting.
In a letter to the Meeting’s president, Lazzarini stated the company’s means to hold out its mandate is “seriously threatened.” He urged member states to “provide the political support necessary to sustain” it.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed greater than 30,500 individuals, principally girls and kids, in line with the newest toll from Hamas-run Gaza’s well being ministry.
Additional escalating tensions, Israel’s international minister stated on Monday that Israel had known as its ambassador to the United Nations residence for “immediate consultations” over what it stated was a UN try to “silence” info of sexual violence by Hamas.
Israel has criticised the UN for not responding shortly sufficient to victims’ accounts of rape and sexual assault allegedly dedicated throughout Hamas’s incursion into Israel.
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