UNRWA review panel in conflict of interest – Israel

One of the organizations in the United Nations’ independent review group on The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and its connection to terrorism has a conflict of interest and anti-Israel bias, the Diaspora Ministry claimed in an April report obtained by The Jerusalem Post.

The Norwegian Chr. Michelsen Institute’s (CMI) senior researchers have longstanding connections with UNRWA, have conducted in-person interviews with terrorist organization operatives, worked to advance pro-Palestinian agendas, and attempted to justify the October 7 Hamas massacre, the ministry said.

Ahead of the review group’s expected Saturday final report concerning the allegations against 12 UNRWA personnel in the 7 October attacks, the ministry asserted that CMI’s past relations and positions contradicts the group’s mission of issuing a neutral report to assuage the concerns of donor states. The ministry highlighted several examples of partiality to UNRWA and the Palestinian narrative.

CMI Associated researcher Kjersti G. Berg wrote in the 2022 report “UNRWA, funding crisis and the way forward” in favor of the organization and its funding. In the report Berg describes the Nakba and corresponding events only though the Palestinian narrative, and described Israeli and other criticisms of UNRWA school curricula as political attacks that serve to delegitimize and weaken UNRWA. UNRWA has been criticized by groups like the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education for teaching content that promotes terrorism and antisemitism.

“As Israel has moved to the right, supporting UNRWA can be a way for foreign ministries to support the idea that international law extends from an international order,” Berg wrote in the 2022 report commissioned by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Diaspora Ministry alleged that Berg, who notes in the report that she conducted extensive interviews with UNRWA staff and was given access to internal documents, was given access permitted to few researchers based on decades of interaction and trust.

Berg co-wrote an October 21 article for the Norwegian newspaper Bergens Tidende in which she blamed Israel for the factors that led to the Hamas pogrom.

“It is not legitimization of Hamas’s attack when one as a researcher points out that the attack by Hamas cannot be understood in a vacuum. It is absolutely essential to understand Hamas and the dynamics between Hamas and Israel over the past 16 years, but there is also a wider context that we must deal with.” wrote Berg and Peace Research Institute Oslo mem

was established, the community center has not been operating according to instructions.” He continued, “We have been providing full assistance to residents of communities that have been evacuated, and the activity continues wherever the residents live.”

The IDF said after the attack that it had targeted the sites where the drones and missiles were fired from, as well as a building in Ayta ash Shab where Hezbollah terrorists were spotted.

Overnight on Wednesday, two Hezbollah commanders were killed, among them the commander of the coastal region of the terrorist organization, Ismail Yusef Baz, whose rank is equivalent to an Israeli brigade commander.

This brought the number of brigade-level Hezbollah commanders who Israel has killed since the start of the war to six, while the total number of brigade and medium level commanders killed by Israel is over 30, and the total number of Hezbollah and other terrorists killed is close to 350.

At press time, the IDF had not responded to a query about the total number of Hezbollah brigade commanders.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, the IDF’s 401st Brigade, Nahal, the 215th Firepower Brigade, and other units under the command of the 162nd Division, in cooperation with IAF aircraft, killed Hamas terrorists and destroyed Hamas infrastructure in central Gaza, including an airstrike on a terrorist squad which was trying to attack the IDF with an armed drone.

In additional attacks, the air force and the 215th Firepower Brigade, targeted several missile sites. Over Tuesday night and Wednesday, members of the Nahal Brigade killed a drone operator and Nahal snipers killed another terrorist who was on his way to attack.

In the last 24 hours, the air force attacked over 40 terrorist targets throughout the Gaza Strip, including underground launch sites, booby-trapped buildings, military buildings,