Details emerge on U.N. workers accused of aiding Hamas raid

One is accused of kidnapping a woman. Another is said to have handed out ammunition. A third was described as taking part in the massacre at a kibbutz where 97 people died. And all were said to be employees of the United Nations aid agency that schools, shelters and feeds hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The accusations are contained in a dossier provided to the United States government that details Israel's claims against a dozen employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency who, it says, played a role in the Hamas attacks against Israel on Oct. 7 or in their aftermath.

The U.N. said Friday that it had fired several employees after being briefed on the allegations. But little was known about the accusations until the dossier was reviewed Sunday by The New York Times.

The accusations are what prompted eight countries, including the United States, to suspend some aid payment to the UNRWA, as the agency is known, even as war plunges Palestinians in Gaza into desperate straits. More than 26,000 people have been killed there and nearly 2 million displaced, according to Gaza and U.N. officials.

The UNRWA workers have been accused of helping Hamas stage the attack that set off the war in Gaza, or of aiding it in the days after. Some 1,200 people in Israel were killed that day, Israeli officials say, and about 240 were abducted and taken to Gaza.

U.N. officials initially said all 12 employees were fired, but on Sunday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said nine had been dismissed.

Asked about Israel's allegations Sunday, UNRWA said that two of the 12 employees were dead but that it could not provide more information while the U.N.'s Office of Internal Oversight Services was still investigating.

Guterres described himself as “horrified by these accusations” but implored those nations that had suspended their aid payments to reconsider. UNRWA is one of the largest employers in Gaza, with 13,000 people, mostly Palestinians, on staff.

Two Western officials confirmed on the condition of anonymity that they had been briefed on the contents of the dossier in recent days, but said they had not been able to verify the details. Although the United States has yet to corroborate the Israeli claims itself, U.S. officials say they found them credible enough to warrant suspending aid.

The Times verified the identity of one of the 12 employees, a storeroom manager, whose social media profile lists him as an UNRWA employee and shows him wearing U.N.branded clothes.

The Israeli accusations come against the backdrop of decadeslong frictions with UNRWA. Since 1949, the agency has cared for the families of Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes during the wars surrounding the creation of the state of Israel.