The evidence that some UNRWA staff members participated in the October 7 attack against Israel is credible, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, as he stressed that it was not possible to replace the organization’s role as the major humanitarian service provider in the region.
“We haven’t had the ability to investigate [the allegations] ourselves, but they are highly, highly credible,” Blinken told reporters in Washington.
He spoke after Israel provided UNRWA with data alleging that 12 of its staff had been part of the October 7 attack against southern Israel in which over 1,200 people were killed and another 253 seized hostage.
Blinken said that UNRWA had reported to the US on the situation and that he found it “deeply, deeply troubling.”
The US is one of the largest donors to UNRWA's $1.6 billion budget, which is expected to increase in 2024 and which is the largest support by annual donor funding. That funding is contingent on UNRWA and its staff not being involved in incitement against Israel and engaged in terror.
Agency has fired nine of the employees named as taking part in Oct 7 attack
UNRWA has fired nine of the staff members accused of taking part in the October 7 attack, including in some of the kidnappings. The UN has also opened an investigation into the allegations.
Blinken said it was “imperative that UNRWA immediately, as it said it would, investigate; that it hold people accountable as necessary; and that it review its procedures.”
He said had spoken about the issue with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and that it would be “looking very hard at the steps that UNRWA takes to make sure that this is fully and thoroughly investigated, that there’s clear accountability, and that as necessary, measures are put in place so that this doesn’t happen again.”
The US is among upwards of 15 donor countries that have suspended funding already pledged toward the 2024 budget until a UN investigation is completed.
At risk is over $363 million in pledged funds. UNRWA has warned that unless the suspensions are rescinded it could be forced to halt its services to 5.9 million Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, east Jerusalem, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.
Blinken calls UNRWA "indispensable"
Its efforts have been considered particularly critical in Gaza, in light of the Israel-Hamas war, which has caused the displacement of most of the 2.3 million Palestinians in the enclave. UNRWA services most of that population.
Blinken said that UNRWA’s role as a humanitarian service provider is “indispensable.”
“No one else can play the role that UNRWA’s been playing, certainly not in the near term. No one has the reach, the capacity, the structure to do what UNRWA’s been doing. And from our perspective, it’s important – more than important; imperative – that that role continues,” Blinken stated.
“That only underscores the importance of UNRWA tackling this as quickly, as effectively, and as thoroughly as possible, and that’s what we’re looking for,” he stated.
At the UN in New York, Guterres’s spokesperson Stephen Dujarric said that the organization was taking “very seriously” the allegation that had been made.
He noted that there were two different dossiers of information that Israel had privately released, of which only one that had been shared with the UN was the report that dealt with the participation of staff members in the October 7 attack. The UN, he explained, has not seen the larger dossiers, reported on by Reuters and other media agencies, regarding the links between Hamas and 190 of the UNRWA staff.
Israel has not made public its data against UNRWA.