The United Nations fired several employees from its Palestinian refugee agency. The agency is a lifeline to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
The United Nations fired nine employees from its Palestinian refugee agency, the United Nations Relief Works Agency, on Friday after Israel accused them of involvement in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. The U.N. described the allegations as “extremely serious and horrific” and says it’s investigating the terminated staffers and will refer them for criminal prosecution if they’re found to have been involved.
The State Department’s position is that these allegations remain just that, allegations, and that an investigation is needed to sort out what happened. But the U.S. has reacted to the allegations by immediately suspending its funding to the UNRWA. At least 10 other countries have followed suit.
The Biden administration’ suspension is a drastic and morally indefensible step. The U.S. is one of the chief donors to the UNRWA, and the agency helps keeps hundreds of thousands of Palestinians alive by coordinating the distribution of humanitarian aid to the economically starved enclave. To cut off the entire agency, especially in concert with several other major donors, is effectively an act of collective punishment — carried out against a people who have been subjected to lethal collective punishment for months. And it could have swiftly devastating consequences: the U.N. says it won’t be able to continue humanitarian operations beyond the end of February unless funding resumes.
Israel hasn’t accused the UNRWA of operating as a secret Hamas cell. Rather, Israeli intelligence agencies say they have evidence that at least 12 UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 attacks and shared that information with the UNRWA and the U.S. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement on Sunday that it immediately fired nine of those employees, one is confirmed dead, and that it is clarifying the identities of two of them.
