The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) and its commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini have been shortlisted for the Nobel Peace Prize despite Israeli efforts to close the agency and the withdrawal of Western funding. UNRWA has been an indispensable organisation since 1949 when it was created by the UN General Assembly to care for most of the 750,000 Palestinians driven from their homes by Israel and has promoted stability in this region during bouts of warfare and periods of economic crisis. Today UNRWA serves 5.7 million Palestinian refugees living in the Israeli-occupied territories, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.

News of UNRWA’s nomination for the coveted Nobel Peace Prize broke as Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told the right-wing US Fox News television channel that Israel has gathered new evidence showing that dozens of agency employees were involved in the October 7th raid into southern Israel by Hamas which killed 1,139 Israelis and visitors and abducted 240.

In late January, Israel initially identified a dozen agency staff who were charged with taking part in or aiding the Hamas attack. The timing of this accusation is suspect as it coincided with the submission to the International Court of Justice of South African’s legal case accusing Israel of the crime of genocide in Gaza.

After an Israeli official made the accusations against UNRWA employees verbally to Lazzarini, he fired them and ordered an investigation into the charges. However, he could dismiss only nine as two were dead and one could not be identified. Lazzarini said any UNRWA employee involved in acts of violence against Israelis would be “held accountable [and] face criminal prosecution.”

Lazzarini admitted recently that he had adopted “reverse due process” by firing the nine accused staff rather than suspending them until the results of investigations were known.

He said Israel did not give UNRWA the six-page accusatory document based on mobile phone taps, identity cards of Palestinians said to be involved in the Hamas raid, and interro-gations of Palestinian prisoners. Instead, the Israeli official translated from thick file from its internal intelligence. “There were strong allegations, with names and for each of the names associated to a given activity on that day.”

Writing on Middle East Monitor, Jamal Kanj cited Sky News which he said “has reviewed the Israeli [six-page] dossier on the alleged ‘evidence against UNRWA staff. It has stated that it ‘has not seen proof and many of the claims, even if true, do not directly Implicate UNRWA.” The Washington Post took a similar stand about the lack of evidence.

Naturally, the Biden administration found the allegations “highly credible.”

In response to Israel’s unsubstantiated allegations, the US and 19 subservient donor countries, suspended funding to UNRWA. Loyalists have stood behind UNRWA. Spain made a special contribution of $3.8 million and Portugal of $1 million while Norway delivered its $26 million annual contribution and Ireland pledged $18 million.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres promptly ordered the UN oversight office to conduct a probe and report its findings by March and last week appointed France’s ex-Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna to conduct a deeper investigation of the agency and provide an interim report next month and a full report in April. Cash-strapped UNRWA could be forced to cut salaries worth $60 million of teachers, healthcare workers, and administrators by the end of this month as donors have said they will wait to decide what to do once the investigators report although they are not due until March.

Tightening the screw on UNRWA, last week the Republican-dominated House of Repre-sentatives Foreign Affairs Committee voted 30-19 to push for legislation to cancel permanently all US aid to UNRWA.

Guterres, Lazzarini, and UNRWA loyalists have hit back at Israel, the US, and its proxies, including Britain and Germany which are depriving the crisis-ridden agency of $440 million in life-saving funds. Guterres has said there is no organisation which could replace UNRWA and argued donations should be restored.

Lazzarini has countered an Israeli call for his resignation by saying he would continue with UNRWA as long as he believed he was serving the Palestinian people and acting as a “voice for the Palestinian refugees.” A pro-Israel clique of US lawmakers retorted by calling for the resignation of both Guterres and Lazzarini.

Since making its initial allegations against UNRWA, Israel has stepped up charges by saying 10 per cent of its 13,000 Gaza staff belongs to Hamas and has claimed there is a Hamas tunnel under UNRWA’s compound in Gaza City and that a weapon had been found in an office there.

Israel has slain conducted more than 290 deliberate attacks on150 UNRWA premises sheltering 1.7 million internally displaced. Although UNRWA facilities locations are well known and fly the UN flag, 395 civilians have been killed and 1,379 wounded while seeking refuge while 154 agency employees have been killed. This is the highest number of UN staff ever slain since the organisation’s founding in 1945. Lazzarini said an UNRWA account in an Israeli bank has been frozen its tax benefits would be cancelled.

Israel has also refused to cooperate with UNRWA in its efforts to import, transport, and deliver humanitarian aid to 2.3 million starving, ailing, wounded, and homeless Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has blocked 50 per cent of the supplies UNRWA requested for Gaza despite the crisis, undermining the agency’s ability to deliver food and other aid.

Israel has for weeks barred the offloading at Ashdon port of a shipment of food capable of feeding one million people for a month at a time a quarter of Gazans face catastrophic hunger. UNRWA said the cargo, donated by Turkey, consists of “1,049 containers of rice, flour, chickpeas, sugar and cooking oil are stuck as families in Gaza face hunger and starvation”. The Associated Press reported that the Israeli contractor employed by UNRWA received a call from customs telling him not to accept payments from a Palestinian bank.

For decades, Israel has striven to close UNRWA, claiming the agency perpetuates the Palestinian national identity by registering descendants of Palestinians driven from their homes, lands, villages, and towns 75 years ago. Many Palestinians settled in UNRWA camps with fellow members of their home communities and maintained local traditions in exile, reinforcing their identity. Israel has tried and failed to refer to Palestinians as “Arab refugees” and seeks their permanent assimilation in neighbouring Arab countries. Israel calls its own Palestinian citizens “Arab Israelis” rather than Palestinian citizens of Israel. UNRWA’s full name, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East” is an affront to Israel as the words “Palestine” and “Palestinian” challenge Israel’s legitimacy.

Photo: TNS