“The international community is blaming the entire UNRWA for what the 12 people did”

Has the Israeli government shared the full report containing the allegations with UNRWA?

We don’t have the report, they have only given us the names. First we verified that they were UNRWA workers. This was not immediate as the agency has 30,000 staff, 13,000 of whom are in Gaza. We were able to confirm that two of them are dead and on leave in our system; Eight match and have been identified; And with the second one we are still trying to determine who it is because Palestine is a very common name. It matches two people, so we’ve asked Israel for more information. The employment contracts of the nine identified people have been canceled immediately. And our Commissioner General has traveled to New York to personally inform the UN Secretary General about the situation and ask him to launch an investigation. The investigation has started and we are waiting for the results.

I understand that if the nine staff have been dismissed, it is because UNRWA considers the allegations against them to be credible.

This is not a question of credibility, the question is that we take these types of complaints very seriously and we believe that, to protect the integrity of the agency, precautionary measures were appropriate as long as their implications were clear. Doesn’t happen. If this could not be proven, UNRWA would obviously have to compensate these workers and rehire them.

Since then, more than a dozen countries have suspended donations, including the agency’s biggest donors such as the United States and Germany. What percentage of the budget does this suspended aid represent?

At this time we have 15 donors that have canceled funds and their funds amount to $840 million. This amount is equal to two-thirds of the donations we received from the states last year.

What effect will this have in the short term in Gaza?

We can continue our operations in Gaza until the end of February. If the situation does not improve till then, we will have to stop operations. And this would be a blow to the population, which currently depends on UNRWA humanitarian operations. We not only coordinate and distribute all aid coming into the Strip, but we also serve the 1,700,000 displaced people living in our facilities. We are not able to meet their needs with the help we receive, but at least they are surviving, although there are already half a million people suffering from hunger and the number of hungry people is increasing every day. We also distribute fuel used for water pumping and desalination plants to municipalities. Therefore, Gaza will not survive without UNRWA.

A few weeks before the scandal, the Israeli press published that the Foreign Ministry had plans to expel UNRWA from Gaza. Why do you think Israel wants to dismantle UNRWA?

You should ask Israel. This is not the first time he has given such a statement. We have heard them for many years, and not just since this conflict began. Right now we are the agency that supports the population of Gaza and the agency that is reporting on what is happening on the ground.

Israel accuses them of perpetuating the conflict by, among other things, defending the right of return of refugees. Does Israel want to destroy UNRWA to eliminate that authority?

It should be made clear that UNRWA does not advocate the right of return. We are a humanitarian agency dedicated to providing health, educational, basic services and emergency assistance to the refugee population of Palestine. We no longer have any mandate. This is what separates us from UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency), whose job is to find solutions for refugees, to integrate them into a third country or to exercise their right to return to their country of origin. So when Israel criticizes us by saying that in 75 years we have not resolved any refugee situation, it is distorting the reality of our mandate. UNRWA does not advocate the right of return, only a just and definitive solution for Palestinian refugees. But we cannot say what that solution is.

They also say that UNRWA is infiltrated by Hamas and acts as a parallel arm of its government in Gaza.

He also said this about UN Women, the World Health Organization or any organization, institution or state that criticizes the occupation, that condemns the human rights violations committed by Israel and that currently supports Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. goes against.

If UNRWA disappeared, as Israel wants, what would happen in legal and political terms?

Imagine that UNRWA has collapsed and can no longer provide services because there is no funding. It is up to the United Nations General Assembly, its member states, to decide what they are going to do with that population and which agency will take care of them if they decide to maintain services. The only option now would be UNHCR. Perhaps Israel has not considered that, if UNRWA disappears, the alternative is an agency that would have to work to return Palestine refugees to their homes, which are today in the State of Israel. UNRWA would like to disappear once and for all because that would mean the situation has been resolved and is no longer needed.

If that were the scenario, shouldn’t Israel take responsibility for providing services to refugees?

Absolutely. It has an obligation to care for the safety and well-being of the occupied population, which Israel has failed to do since 1967, when it occupied Palestine. Israel says it is no longer the occupying power in Gaza since it withdrew its troops and residents from there in 2005, but the United Nations reminded it that today it cannot physically occupy any territory it controls. Possession is not necessary. Israel occupies Gaza peripherally, but with effective control over the territory. It decides who comes in and who goes out, as well as luggage. Control hours of electricity or liters of water entering Gaza. It controls mobile phones, types of Internet connections, all aspects of Palestinian life. And this is tantamount to occupying the territory for the United Nations.

How do you explain that the alleged UNRWA scandal came to light on the same day that the International Court of Justice declared that there were possible signs of genocide in Gaza and approved precautionary measures?

A few days ago, Israel informed the Commissioner General of UNRWA about this situation and we were the ones who made it public on the same Friday as the decision. It took us time to verify that those people were on our list of workers.

And why was the decision taken to do so at that time?

Because we are a transparent organization and whenever a problem arises we have a responsibility to inform the public, our donors and of course the UN Secretary General. It’s always been that way and that’s how all agencies work. We cannot hide any fact.

Spain is one of the European countries that has opted to maintain financing, Others had taken action even before the results of the investigation were known.

I have to thank the Spanish government for its position. I was confident that this would be the case because of the approach the Government has taken towards UNRWA and the conflict, and I feel this is the most consistent decision with the current situation in Gaza. I completely understand that governments want an investigation to verify that UNRWA has nothing to do with these criminal acts, but they must understand that there is no alternative to UNRWA right now and people will not die of hunger It depends on their decision. Dying of thirst or lack of health care and medicine. In the best interests of human life, maintaining funding for UNRWA must be a priority.

Its workers have paid a very high price.

We must start with the fact that we work in high-risk areas. It’s not easy and unfortunately these things can happen. What you cannot do is point a finger in the eyes of the organization working in this context, especially considering that they are killing our employees. 152 UNRWA workers have been killed, 145 of our facilities have been attacked, including buildings where international staff sleep. Our staff are literally giving their lives and, to top it all, now the international community blames all UNRWA workers and the agency for the actions of the 12 people. This does not happen in any organization anywhere in the world except UNRWA.