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UNRWA Employee Shares with Asharq Al-Awsat Experience of Investigation

UNRWA center targeted by Israeli shelling in northern Gaza (DPA)
UNRWA center targeted by Israeli shelling in northern Gaza (DPA)
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UNRWA Employee Shares with Asharq Al-Awsat Experience of Investigation

UNRWA center targeted by Israeli shelling in northern Gaza (DPA)
UNRWA center targeted by Israeli shelling in northern Gaza (DPA)

Palestinian sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has stepped up its investigations into employees suspected of links to Hamas over the past two months.

This move comes in response to a heightened Israeli campaign against UNRWA, which includes claims of its ties to Hamas.

To counter these accusations, the agency is taking steps to provide evidence that refutes them.

These actions are part of UNRWA’s efforts to protect its humanitarian mission, which has faced increasing challenges amid rising tensions in the region.

In recent years, UNRWA has been targeted by an expanding Israeli campaign, especially following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

The accusations include allegations that its staff were involved in the attacks and helped protect Israeli captives. In response, the Israeli Knesset has sought to ban UNRWA’s operations and cut all ties with the agency.

UNRWA Investigates Employees Amid Israeli Allegations

UNRWA is investigating employees linked to the Oct. 7 attacks, based on names provided in Israeli reports to international agencies.

Sources confirmed that UNRWA has broadened its inquiries to include additional staff suspected of ties to Hamas, relying on connections to those already named by Israel.

One employee, questioned due to his inclusion in these Israeli lists, stated that no evidence linked him to the attack or to Hamas, leading to no action against them.

Speaking anonymously to Asharq Al-Awsat, the employee said the investigations focused on whether staff participated in the attacks or were involved in Hamas-related activities, including hiding Israeli captives.

They noted that the questioning involved both foreign and Palestinian officials and was very detailed, asking about participation in Hamas meetings. Of the 16 employees they knew who were investigated, only three faced genuine accusations.

UNRWA has rejected Israel’s claims, stating it will conduct its own investigation.

Spokesperson Adnan Abu Hasna emphasized that Israel has not provided evidence for its allegations against UNRWA employees over the past 15 years, despite UNRWA submitting annual lists of staff members.

Meanwhile, Israel has continued its accusations, recently announcing the killing of Mohammed Abu Atiwi, identified as a commander responsible for the Oct. 7 attack on a festival in southern Israel. Before that, Israel targeted other UNRWA workers, claiming they were Hamas operatives while distributing aid.

Asharq Al-Awsat has learned that Abu Atiwi, recently named in Israeli reports, had left UNRWA years ago and has no current connection to the organization.

This also applies to several others mentioned in the Israeli lists submitted to the UN.

The news about Atiwi emerged just days before the Israeli Knesset passed a law banning UNRWA’s operations within Israel. Israel had already cut ties with UNRWA in Gaza prior to this decision.

Sources revealed that various international organizations have recently hired UNRWA employees to deliver humanitarian aid in Gaza. These organizations provided employee names to Israel before deployment due to ongoing Israeli claims that UNRWA employs Hamas activists to divert aid.

This measure aimed to prevent further Israeli attacks on UNRWA staff involved in aid distribution.

It is still uncertain how the Knesset’s decision will affect UNRWA. According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the law will mainly impact Palestinians in Jerusalem but will also affect operations in Gaza and the West Bank, blocking aid deliveries and halting funding for employee salaries and services for refugees in those areas. This comes as the region continues to face conflict for over a year.

The new Israeli law banning UNRWA has drawn widespread condemnation from Palestinian, Arab, and international organizations, including the US.

Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, warned that dismantling the agency would have devastating effects on the humanitarian response in Gaza.

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Climate Change-Worsened Floods Wreak Havoc in Africa

People carry possessions on a pirogue over flood water flowing over a main road in Odobere on October 22, 2024. (AFP)
People carry possessions on a pirogue over flood water flowing over a main road in Odobere on October 22, 2024. (AFP)
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Climate Change-Worsened Floods Wreak Havoc in Africa

People carry possessions on a pirogue over flood water flowing over a main road in Odobere on October 22, 2024. (AFP)
People carry possessions on a pirogue over flood water flowing over a main road in Odobere on October 22, 2024. (AFP)

Every rainy season for the past 12 years, floods have swept through 67-year-old Idris Egbunu's house in central Nigeria.

It is always the same story -- the Niger River bursts its banks and the waters claim his home for weeks on end, until he can return and take stock of the damage.

The house then needs cleaning, repairs, fumigation and repainting, until the next rainy season.

Flooding is almost inevitable around Lokoja in Nigeria's Kogi state, where Africa's third-longest river meets its main tributary, the Benue.

But across vast areas of Africa, climate change has thrown weather patterns into disarray and made flooding much more severe, especially this year.

Devastating inundations are threatening the survival of millions of residents on the continent. Homes have been wrecked and crops ruined, jeopardizing regional food security.

Torrential rains and severe flooding have affected around 6.9 million people in West and Central Africa so far in 2024, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

- 'Very, very bad' -

Residents and officials around Lokoja said floods first became more severe in Kogi state in 2012 and have battered the area each year since.

In 2022, Nigeria's worst floods in a decade killed more than 500 people and displaced 1.4 million.

Sandra Musa, an emergency agency adviser to the Kogi state governor, believes this year's flooding has not yet reached the level seen in 2022, but warned it was "very, very bad".

"Usually at this time of year the water level drops, but here it's rising again," she told AFP, estimating that the floods have affected around two million people in the state.

Fatima Bilyaminu, a 31-year-old mother and shopkeeper, can only get to her house in the Adankolo district of Lokoja by boat as a result of the waters.

The swollen river rises almost to the windows, while water hyacinths float past the crumbling building.

"I lost everything. My bed, my cushioned chair, my wardrobe, my kitchen equipment," she told AFP.

With no money to rent a house elsewhere, she has little choice but to keep living in the small concrete building and repair it, flood after flood.

- Damage and displacement -

Africa is bearing the brunt of climate change, even though it only contributes around four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent report by the World Meteorological Organization.

This year is set to overtake 2023 as the world's hottest on record.

"This year has been unusual in terms of the amount of rainfall, with many extreme events, which is one of the signs of climate change," said Aida Diongue-Niang from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In the Sahel region bordering the Sahara desert, the volume, intensity and duration of rainfall was "unprecedented," according to Amadou Diakite from the Mali Meteo weather service.

In Niger, some regions recorded up to 200 percent more rain than in previous years, the national meteorological service said. The waters put at risk the historic city center of Agadez, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the desert north.

Over the border in Chad, torrential rains since July have killed at least 576 people and affected 1.9 million, more than 10 percent of the population, according to a report published by the OCHA.

In neighboring Cameroon, the UN body said torrential rains had destroyed more than 56,000 homes and flooded tens of thousands of hectares of crops.

Floodwaters swept through the capital Conakry in Guinea, while floods in Monrovia reignited debates over building another city to serve as Liberia's capital.

Entire districts of Mali's capital Bamako were submerged, leaving waste and liquid from septic tanks seeping across the streets.

In August, downpours caused the roof of the centuries-old Tomb of Askia in the Malian city of Gao to collapse.

Several countries have postponed the start of the school year as a result of the floods.

- 'Keep getting worse' -

"It used to be a decadal cycle of flooding, and we're now into a yearly cycle," said Clair Barnes, a researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.

"This is only going to keep getting worse if we keep burning fossil fuels," she said.

As global temperatures rise, extreme weather events will increase in frequency and intensity, scientists warn.

Experts estimate that by 2030, up to 118 million Africans already living in poverty will be exposed to drought, floods and intense heat.

Building along riverbanks also poses a risk, Youssouf Sane of Senegal's meteorology agency said, urging governments to think about the relationship between climate change and urbanization.

But the IPCC's Diongue-Niang said the only way to tackle extreme weather was to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

"That doesn't fall to the region -- it falls to the whole of humanity," she said.