Yousaf does not rule out Scotland sending more cash to scandal-hit UN agency in Gaza

SNP ministers in Scotland could send more taxpayers’ cash to a United Nations agency even though some of its staff have been accused of involvement in Hamas’s Oct 7 attack on Israel.

Humza Yousaf said that the Scottish Government, which last year gave £750,000 to the UN’S agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), would seek to “do more where we can” after a number of countries withdrew funding.

His remarks came as Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, called on governments that had paused donations to reconsider their stance, warning that vital aid for two million people in war-torn Gaza was at stake.

Mr Yousaf ’s position clashes with the one adopted by the UK and several other Western countries, including the US, which suspended support for the organisation after Israel said it had evidence that some of its workers had taken part in the Oct 7 atrocities.

Several members of staff have been sacked by UNRWA, the biggest UN agency operating in Gaza, with Israel making allegations against 12 of its employees in total.

It comes as A Labour MP was suspended after accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza in a post about Holocaust Memorial Day. Kate Osamor, the MP for Edmonton, said in a weekly newsletter for local members on Friday that Holocaust Memorial Day was a day to remember Jews “murdered during the

Holocaust, ... more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and now Gaza”. She has been suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party pending an investigation, a Labour source confirmed last night.