The United Nations was criticized widely after it claimed immunity for its staff—some of whom Israel says participated directly in Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre—in a lawsuit, which victims of the attack filed in U.S. federal court.
Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesman for António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, told JNS on Monday that the global body’s immunity claims are specific to the suit and do not extend to U.N. staff members alleged to have participated in the Oct. 7 attack.
“Reporting that we’ve seen on different Israeli media is often not specifically well-informed,” Dujarric told JNS during a U.N. press briefing. The U.N. spokesman added that the global body has, in the past, “often acted clearly and taken action against staff found to have committed criminal wrongdoing and referred them to national authorities.”
“We do that on a regular basis,” he said.
Dujarric added that the United Nations “does not consider immunity to be a barrier to investigations or national court investigations in criminal misconduct, and I think the immunity is there to protect staff from harassment. It is not there to protect staff from criminal investigations.”
The civil suit, filed in June, targets high-ranking past and present officials of The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) whom it alleges supported and collaborated with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror organization.
Shortly after the suit was filed, Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for Guterres, told JNS that the United Nations, “including UNRWA, enjoys immunity from legal process, as do United Nations officials, including those serving with UNRWA.”
Haq added at the time that the global body “will liaise with the United States authorities as necessary in this matter.”
A filing in the case by Merrick Garland, the U.S. attorney general, indicates that the Biden administration agrees with the U.N. position.
An internal U.N. investigation found in early August that nine UNRWA employees “may” have taken part in the Oct. 7 massacre. A U.N spokesman said that the conclusion of the investigation was more definitive, agreeing with a journalist’s description that those UNRWA workers “likely or highly likely were part of the attacks.”
‘Deep alarm’
JNS asked Dujarric during the Monday press conference about several statements from U.N. officials and agencies about Israel’s increased military operations in Lebanon over the prior 24 hours.
The U.N. officials and agencies stated that there is “deep alarm” and “deep concern” about Israel’s responses to terror groups in the region without condemning the terror groups for their repeated rocket fire into Israeli territory.
Dujarric insisted that the United Nations doesn’t choose sides.
“I think every day that I speak about the impact on civilians from this podium, I speak about the civilians that have fled southern Lebanon towards the north, and I speak about the Israelis who have had to abandon their homes for now close to a year,” he said.
“We are not finger pointing,” he added. “We’re just extremely worried about a larger conflict, notably a land conflict.”
UNIFIL, the U.N. peacekeeping mission along the Israeli-Lebanese border, expressed “grave concern” on Monday “for the safety of civilians in southern Lebanon amidst the most intense Israeli bombing campaign since last October.”
The agency did not name Hezbollah, after the terror group fired on a soccer field in the Golan village of Majdal Shams in July, killing 12 children. Hezbollah initially claimed responsibility for the attack but backtracked after the children’s deaths were reported.
A search of press statements and news releases since Oct. 7 on the UNIFIL website returns no independent condemnations of Hezbollah. The only times the U.N. agency denounces the terror group appear to be when it also criticizes the Jewish state.
Hezbollah began bombing Israel on Oct. 8 and has fired some 9,000 rockets into Israeli territory since then, killing dozens of people and injuring hundreds and forcing Israelis living in the northern part of the country to leave their homes for safety.
