Israel’s envoy to the United Nations on Tuesday hit back against criticism of Jerusalem’s outlawing of the scandal-plagued United Nations Relieve and Works Agency (UNRWA).
Speaking at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, Ambassador Danny Danon said, “In the last year, we have exposed UNRWA in Gaza as a terrorist front camouflaged as a humanitarian agency,” adding, “Its payroll resembles a most-wanted list, rather than an aid organization.”
The meeting was the Security Council’s quarterly open debate on the Israeli-Palestinian file, with some 50 countries participating.
Many took Israel to task for the Knesset’s passage on Monday of a pair of laws that effectively end UNRWA’s presence in Israel, and strip its employees of their diplomatic privileges.
UNRWA, the U.N.’s Palestinian-only aid and social services agency, has long been accused of ties to Gazan terror organizations. A number of UNRWA staff have been found to have participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas onslaught on Israel.
In recent weeks, UNRWA acknowledged that Fathi al-Sharif, the Hamas commander in Lebanon, killed in an Israeli airstrike, was a UNRWA school principal and chief of the UNRWA teachers’ union.
Mohammad Abu Itiwi, a UNRWA driver in Gaza and a Hamas commander who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last week in a U.N. vehicle, was shown to have led a slaughter of civilians on Oct. 7, 2023 at a bomb shelter in southern Israel. Despite this, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres still referred to Abu Itiwi as a “colleague” upon his death, a sentiment Danon denounced on Tuesday.
“Abu Itiwi led his men in murdering almost all of the young people hiding in the shelter and kidnapping the survivors,” Danon told the council. “A U.N. paycheck was waiting for him in his letter box when he went back to Gaza.”
Danon also chastised the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, the U.N.’s peacekeeping mission along the Israeli-Lebanese border, for “neglecting its reporting obligations” for two decades, following the presentation of Israeli evidence, including that collected in the current conflict, of massive Hezbollah military presence within UNIFIL’s operating area.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Washington’s U.N. ambassador, was among those expressing concern at the Knesset’s UNRWA legislation.
“There is no denying the fact: Some UNRWA personnel were involved in the Oct. 7 attacks,” said Thomas-Greenfield.
While acknowledging steps toward reform UNRWA has taken while criticizing the slow pace of their implementation, Thomas-Greenfield called on Guterres to “create a mechanism to review and address allegations that UNRWA personnel have ties to Hamas and other terrorist groups.”
At the same time, Thomas-Greenfield asserted, “there is no alternative to UNRWA when it comes to delivering food and other life-saving aid in Gaza.”
Israel has insisted other U.N. agencies can step in and manage UNRWA’s responsibilities.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian Authority’s U.N. envoy, told the council that Israel’s new UNRWA laws constitute “a new level in this war against the U.N. and an integral part of an all-out assault on the Palestinian people.”
Guterres announced he would take his concerns to the U.N. General Assembly. A knowledgeable U.N. source indicated the body is likely to take Israel to the International Court of Justice over the issue.
While ICJ rulings are generally of an advisory nature and largely ignored by Israel, ICJ decisions are binding when it comes to matters of disagreement between the United Nations and a member state over provisions of the U.N. Charter.
