On Friday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant revealed the identities of 12 Hamas terrorists who took part in the October 7 atrocities and who were also on the payroll of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. At the same time, he announced that Israel has information linking at least 30 UNRWA employees to the Hamas massacre of Israelis. In addition, he stated that there is intelligence linking 12% of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza to terrorist groups.
“1468 workers are known to be active in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. 185 UNRWA workers are active in the military branches of Hamas and 51 are active in the PIJ military branch,” he said.
“UNRWA has lost legitimacy and can no longer function as a UN body. I have instructed the defense establishment to begin transferring responsibilities related to the delivery of aid, to additional organizations,” he added.
Gallant also provided video proof that Palestinian Red Crescent staff and ambulances aided in the October 7 attack on the Erez base which serves as a humanitarian crossing.
In a separate case, a video has surfaced showing UNRWA employee, Faisal Ali Musalam Naami, carrying off the body of a dead IDF soldier from Kibbutz Be’eri.
Several hostages told Israel security services that they were held in the homes of UNRWA personnel.
According to Israel intelligence, Naami was a member of a Hamas brigade in Nuseiratin central Gaza where he lived. The video shows Naami and another man loading the body of the IDF soldier into an SUV before driving off.
An anonymous UNRWA representative told the NY Post that Naami was killed in an IDF airstrike on October 16. While UNRWA denied that its employees were affiliated with Hamas and claimed that Israel presented any evidence to the contrary, it fired ten employees as a result of the allegations. After the revelations of UNRWA employees being involved in the October 7 massacre, several nations suspended funding to the Palestinian refugee organization.
The Trump administration cut off funding to the UN agency in 2018, calling it an “irredeemably flawed operation” — but President Biden’s State Department resumed the aid and has since contributed more than $730 million.
It was recently revealed that the Biden State Department has sent over $122 million to UNRWA since the October 7 massacre and that two months into the new year, just $300,000 remained of the appropriated funds for 2024.
Israel has also provided evidence that Hamas used UNRWA facilities, including hospitals and schools, as military installations.
Last week, the IDF uncovered a subterranean Hamas computer server complex, dug 65 feet underneath UNRWA headquarters in Gaza that was being supplied with electricity from the UNRWA facility. On Tuesday night, the Israeli army released a video of a tunnel beneath Khan Younis that had housed Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar. Packages of “humanitarian aid” labeled as belonging to UNRWA were among the supplies in Sinwar’s stronghold.
UNRWA denied knowledge of their facilities being used by Hamas.
