Israel-Palestine Mega Fact Check!

One must keep in mind the larger context, which is that Israel has been trying to dismantle UNRWA for years under various pretexts—e.g. in 2009, 2012, and 2018—long before October 7^th 2023.

This latest attempt is based on Israel’s allegations that 19 UNRWA employees (out of 13,000) in Gaza participated in the October 7^th 2023 attacks.

The UN Office of Internal Oversight Services promptly carried out an internal investigation and found sufficient evidence that 9 of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza were indeed involved. They were promptly fired and publicly denounced. This is what one would expect from any respectable organization when it discovers that some of its employees have been involved in abhorrent crimes.

As the BBC noted, "Israel later claimed that more than 450 UNRWA staff were members of terrorist groups, but a UN review published in April found Israel had not provided evidence for its claims."

That said, if having a few “bad apples” in an organization means the entire organization is "bad", then the same could be said of the Israeli government:

1. Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was convicted of belonging to a designated terrorist organization (the Kach party).
2. Former President Moshe Katsav was convicted of rape and obstruction of justice.
3. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was convicted of breach of trust and bribery.
4. Former Minister Aharon Abuhatzira was convicted of larceny, breach of trust, and fraud.
5. Former Minister Shlomo Benizri was convicted of accepting bribes, breach of faith, and obstructing justice.
6. Former Minister Aryeh Deri was convicted of taking bribes and various tax offenses.
7. National Security Advisor and former minister Tzachi Hanegbi was convicted of perjury and moral turpitude.
8. Former Chief of Staff Ari Harow was convicted of bribery, fraud, breach of trust and money laundering.
9. Last but not least, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been charged with fraud, bribery and breach of trust, though the trials are still in progress.

By the above logic, since the Israeli government features quite a few convicted criminals, the Israeli government itself is a criminal organization and countries around the world should withdraw all support for it, including the billions in aid the US sends to Israel each year.

I hope readers will agree that this is not logical.

The reality is that there is no evidence that UNRWA itself is a terrorist organization. UNRWA runs schools, hospitals, and welfare programs, and has done so for over 70 years. As an organization, it has neither terrorist policies nor carries out terrorist actions. UNRWA employees must adhere to principles of neutrality and are explicitly prohibited from involvement in militant or terrorist activities. UNRWA facilities are also regularly inspected for adherence to neutrality.

The vast majority of UNRWA employees in Gaza are Palestinian Arabs. Many Palestinian Arabs have grievances towards Israel, and many support Hamas, That a handful of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees covertly supported or participated in Hamas’s militancy—in violation of UNRWA policies—is unfortunate for UNRWA but it is not clear what more UNRWA could have done to prevent this.