Review: Israel hasn't offered evidence tying U.N. workers to terrorist groups

Israel has not provided evidence to support its allegations that many employees of the main U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees are members of terrorist organizations, according to an independent review commissioned by the United Nations that was released Monday.

The review did not address Israel's allegation that a dozen employees of the agency, known as UNRWA, were involved in the Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct. 7. “It is a separate mission, and it is not in our mandate,” said Catherine Colonna, a former French foreign minister who led the inquiry.

The review was announced in January, before Israel circulated claims that 1 in 10 of UNRWA's 13,000 employees in the Gaza Strip was a member of Hamas and that some of those employees took part in the Oct. 7 attack.

But by the time investigators started working on the review, Israel leveled the charges, giving the inquiry added significance.

Speaking at a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York on Monday, Colonna said she wanted to be “very clear” that the question of involvement in Oct. 7 is a separate question, one that remains under internal investigation by the U.N.

While Israel has not produced evidence of ties to Hamas and other militant groups among UNRWA workers, that does not mean there is no evidence, she noted. “It's very different,” she said.

More than a dozen countries, including the United States, suspended funding to UNRWA in light of the allegations. The United Nations fired 10 of the 12 employees accused in the attack while pleading with donor countries to restore funding at a time when the majority of Gaza residents depend on the group for food and shelter. It also announced an internal investigation along with the independent external review, which was made public Monday.

After the Biden administration halted funding for the agency pending the results of investigations, Congress barred any money for the agency for a year, through March 2025.

The review led by Colonna said that UNRWA had long shared lists of its employees with Israel, but that the Israeli government had not flagged any concerns about agency employees since 2011.

“Israel made public claims that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations,” the report said. “However, Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of this.”

In a statement Monday, Oren Marmorstein, a spokesperson for the Israeli foreign ministry, said: “Hamas has infiltrated UNRWA so deeply that it is no longer possible to determine where UNRWA ends and where Hamas begins.

“This is not what a genuine and thorough review looks like,” he added. “This is what an effort to avoid the problem and not address it head-on looks like.”