UNRWA review: No evidence of terrorism and “neutrality” problems

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was urged by an independent panel on Monday to make “immediate improvement” in order to preserve its impartiality.
Israel said that 12 UNRWA relief workers could have taken part in the terror incident on southern Israel on October 7 and demanded the evaluation.

The review’s lead author, French diplomat Catherine Colonna, said that the panel was particularly assigned by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to evaluate UNRWA’s neutrality rather than the charges against the 12 employees.

In response to Israel’s allegations, Guterres ordered an internal UN monitor to conduct a second probe.

What conclusions did the UNRWA review reach?
“Neutrality-related issues” were found in the 54-page assessment while implementing UNRWA’s “robust” processes to “ensure compliance with the humanitarian principles of neutrality.”
Further issues raised were the politicization of staff unions, “problematic content” in school textbooks, and openly political remarks made by employees.

The assessment said, “Most alleged breaches of neutrality relate to social media posts,” adding that they were often made after violent episodes that had impacted the victims’ family members or coworkers.

The evaluation discovered that the size of Gaza operations and the fact that the majority of the staff were also Palestinians receiving UNRWA aid presented additional difficulties.

UNRWA’s efforts to remove biased textbooks from its schools have made headway, according to the study. Nevertheless, references to Israel as the “Zionist occupation” and Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine were found in almost 4% of textbooks.

The group offered suggestions on how to strengthen neutrality, such as via interactions with funders, impartial personnel and conduct, impartial education, and impartial governance.

Although he has previously said that he would follow the panel’s findings, UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini issued a warning against what he described as Israel’s “deliberate and concerted campaign” to dismantle the agency.

UNRWA asserts that it is up against a calculated effort to cease operations.
Israel ‘yet to offer proof’ to support charges

Colonna said that Israel has not provided evidence to support its assertions.
“Israel has said in public that a significant portion of UNRWA staff members are terrorist group members. But Israel hasn’t yet shown proof of this,” Colonna said to the New York media.

Israel said in March that over 450 UNRWA employees in Gaza were “terrorists.”

According to the review panel, Israel has been receiving UNRWA personnel lists on a regular basis since 2011, and it has never before voiced concern about any of the tens of thousands of names on the lists. Roughly 32,000 individuals work for UNRWA, 13,000 of them are based in Gaza.

What was Israel’s response?
The Foreign Ministry of Israel demanded that funding nations stop supporting UNRWA.

Spokesman for the ministry, Oren Marmorstein, stated, “The Colonna report ignores the severity of the problem and offers cosmetic solutions that do not deal with the enormous scope of Hamas’ infiltration of UNRWA.”

“The problem with UNRWA-Gaza isn’t that of a few bad apples; it is a rotten and poisonous tree whose roots are Hamas,” he said.

This is not the appearance of an authentic and exhaustive assessment. This is the result of trying to sidestep the issue and not deal with it directly.”

Israel, the US, the EU, and numerous Arab governments all classify Hamas, the Islamist militant group in control of Gaza, as a terrorist organization.

Charges have already caused significant trouble for donors.
International donors quickly placed a $450 million (€422 million) financing ceiling on UNRWA after Israel made charges against it. The agency is described by the panel as “irreplaceable and indispensable to Palestinians’ human and economic development.”

The majority of countries have started giving again, but some—like the US and the UK—remain neutral.

The United States, which provides UNRWA with the largest annual donation of $300–400 million, has enacted legislation that locks in a funding freeze for UNRWA until at least March 2025.

In order to assist Palestinians who were displaced or fled during the 1948 conflict, UNRWA was established in 1949. Currently, it serves around six million Palestinian refugees with services.