A hotly anticipated independent review points to "neutrality-related issues" at the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, but offers no evidence that significant numbers of its staff are tied to militants in Gaza.
The nine-week review headed by Catherine Colonna, the former French foreign minister, calls into question Israel's allegations that at least a dozen of UNRWA's 13,000 employees in Gaza took part in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.
Colonna's panel was not asked to investigate those allegations, since that is being done by investigators from the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services. But its report says Israel "has yet to provide supporting evidence" that a signfiicant number of UNRWA staff belong to terrorist groups.
"In the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, UNRWA remains pivotal in providing life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank," the panel's 54-page report on Monday concludes.
"As such, UNRWA is irreplaceable and indispensable to Palestinians’ human and economic development. In addition, many view UNRWA as a humanitarian lifeline," the report says.
However, the group that conducted the review, which included the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and three Scandinavian research organizations, recommends several ways of strengthening the U.N. agency's neutrality.
In Dec. 1949, the U.N. General Assembly established UNRWA to help Palestinians who fled their homes after Israel was created. Almost three quarters of a century later, it supports almost 6 million Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
The review says UNRWA has recently established and updated "a significant number of policies, mechanisms and procedures” to uphold neutrality, but should take further steps to:
- Reassure donors by creating a working group on neutrality and integrity issues, and put neutrality on its agenda at all meetings.
- Launch procedures to deal with future allegations of neutrality breaches and find more ways to better screen potential staff.
- Reinforce its regular sharing of digital staff lists with host countries and Israel by including ID numbers and jobs to help identify any red flags.
Israel 'seeks to end UNRWA's activities'
Due to Israel's allegations, the United States and 15 other major donors suspended about $450 million in funding, or almost half of UNRWA’s annual budget.
Israel continued to urge the U.N. to disband the agency even after UNRWA's Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini fired 12 staff members suspected of involvement with Hamas.
Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in February that another 30 UNRWA workers participated in the Hamas attack and that 12% of UNRWA’s workers in the Gaza Strip were affiliated with the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
In response, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres asked the independent review panel to look at whether UNRWA was doing everything possible to stay neutral and investigate Israel's allegations.
In March, several top donors including Australia, Sweden, Canada, and the E.U. resumed funding contingent on agency reforms.
UNRWA screens people to see if they are on a U.N. sanctions list, but lacks the help of intelligence services to do further vetting, the new report notes, and the agency needs to do a better job of ensuring children's textbooks aren't politicized.
“Neutrality breaches by UNRWA personnel often take the form of social media posts, particularly following incidents of violence affecting colleagues or relatives,” the report says.
For its part, Israel repeatedly attacked UNRWA's facilities in Gaza, Lazzarini told the U.N. Security Council last week, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of staff and people.
"In Gaza, the government of Israel seeks to end UNRWA’s activities. The agency’s requests to deliver aid to the north are repeatedly denied. Our staff are barred from coordination meetings between Israel and humanitarian actors," he said.
"Worse, UNRWA premises and staff have been targeted since the beginning of the war; 178 UNRWA personnel have been killed. More than 160 UNWRA premises, mostly used as shelters, have been damaged or destroyed, killing more than 400 people."
