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.



What to Know about the Ceasefire Deal between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah

People gather as cars drive past rubble from damaged buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs, after a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah took effect at 0200 GMT on Wednesday after US President Joe Biden said both sides accepted an agreement brokered by the United States and France, in Lebanon, November 27, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
People gather as cars drive past rubble from damaged buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs, after a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah took effect at 0200 GMT on Wednesday after US President Joe Biden said both sides accepted an agreement brokered by the United States and France, in Lebanon, November 27, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
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What to Know about the Ceasefire Deal between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah

People gather as cars drive past rubble from damaged buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs, after a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah took effect at 0200 GMT on Wednesday after US President Joe Biden said both sides accepted an agreement brokered by the United States and France, in Lebanon, November 27, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
People gather as cars drive past rubble from damaged buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs, after a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah took effect at 0200 GMT on Wednesday after US President Joe Biden said both sides accepted an agreement brokered by the United States and France, in Lebanon, November 27, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

A ceasefire deal that went into effect on Wednesday could end more than a year of cross-border fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, raising hopes and renewing difficult questions in a region gripped by conflict.
The US- and France-brokered deal, approved by Israel late Tuesday, calls for an initial two-month halt to fighting and requires Hezbollah to end its armed presence in southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops are to return to their side of the border. It offers both sides an off-ramp from hostilities that have driven more than 1.2 million Lebanese and 50,000 Israelis from their homes.
An intense bombing campaign by Israel has left more than 3,700 people dead, many of them civilians, Lebanese officials say. Over 130 people have been killed on the Israeli side.
But while it could significantly calm the tensions that have inflamed the region, the deal does little directly to resolve the much deadlier war that has raged in Gaza since the Hamas attack on southern Israel in October 2023 that killed 1,200 people.
Hezbollah, which began firing scores of rockets into Israel the following day in support of Hamas, previously said it would keep fighting until there was a stop to the fighting in Gaza. With the new cease-fire, it has backed away from that pledge, in effect leaving Hamas isolated and fighting a war alone.
Here’s what to know about the tentative ceasefire agreement and its potential implications:
The terms of the deal
The agreement reportedly calls for a 60-day halt in fighting that would see Israeli troops retreat to their side of the border while requiring Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a broad swath of southern Lebanon. President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the deal is set to take effect at 4 a.m. local time on Wednesday (9 p.m. EST Tuesday).
Under the deal, thousands of Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers are to deploy to the region south of the Litani River. An international panel led by the US would monitor compliance by all sides. Biden said the deal “was designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.”
Israel has demanded the right to act should Hezbollah violate its obligations, but Lebanese officials rejected writing that into the proposal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that the military would strike Hezbollah if the UN peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, does not enforce the deal.
Lingering uncertainty
Hezbollah indicated it would give the ceasefire pact a chance, but one of the group's leaders said the group's support for the deal hinged on clarity that Israel would not renew its attacks.
“After reviewing the agreement signed by the enemy government, we will see if there is a match between what we stated and what was agreed upon by the Lebanese officials,” Mahmoud Qamati, deputy chair of Hezbollah’s political council, told the Qatari satellite news network Al Jazeera.
“We want an end to the aggression, of course, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of the state” of Lebanon, he said.
The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said Tuesday that Israel’s security concerns had been addressed in the deal.
Where the fighting has left both sides After months of cross-border bombings, Israel can claim major victories, including the killing of Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, most of his senior commanders and the destruction of extensive militant infrastructure.
A complex attack in September involving the explosion of hundreds of walkie-talkies and pagers used by Hezbollah was widely attributed to Israel, signaling a remarkable penetration of the militant group.
The damage inflicted on Hezbollah has hit not only in its ranks, but the reputation it built by fighting Israel to a stalemate in the 2006 war. Still, its fighters managed to put up heavy resistance on the ground, slowing Israel’s advance while continuing to fire scores of rockets, missiles and drones across the border each day.
The ceasefire offers relief to both sides, giving Israel’s overstretched army a break and allowing Hezbollah leaders to tout the group’s effectiveness in holding their ground despite Israel’s massive advantage in weaponry. But the group is likely to face a reckoning, with many Lebanese accusing it of tying their country’s fate to Gaza’s at the service of key ally Iran, inflicting great damage on a Lebanese economy that was already in grave condition.
No answers for Gaza Until now, Hezbollah has insisted that it would only halt its attacks on Israel when it agreed to stop fighting in Gaza. Some in the region are likely to view a deal between the Lebanon-based group and Israel as a capitulation.
In Gaza, where officials say the war has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians, Israel’s attacks have inflicted a heavy toll on Hamas, including the killing of the group’s top leaders. But Hamas fighters continue to hold scores of Israeli hostages, giving the militant group a bargaining chip if indirect ceasefire negotiations resume.
Hamas is likely to continue to demand a lasting truce and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in any such deal, while Netanyahu on Tuesday reiterated his pledge to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed and all hostages are freed.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces were ousted from Gaza by Hamas in 2007 and who hopes to one day rule over the territory again as part of an independent Palestinian state, offered a pointed reminder Tuesday of the intractability of the war, demanding urgent international intervention.
“The only way to halt the dangerous escalation we are witnessing in the region, and maintain regional and international stability, security and peace, is to resolve the question of Palestine,” he said in a speech to the UN read by his ambassador.