MESSAGE
| DATE | 2024-01-29 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] Israel
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> Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Intelligence Reveals Details of U.N. Agency Staff’s Links to Oct. 7 Attack
Carrie Keller-Lynn and David Luhnow
8–10 minutes
TEL AVIV—At least 12 employees of the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency
had connections to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and around 10% of all
of its Gaza staff have ties to Islamist militant groups, according to
intelligence reports reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Six United Nations Relief and Works Agency workers were part of the wave
of Palestinian militants who killed 1,200 people in the deadliest
assault on Jews since the Holocaust, according to the intelligence
dossier. Two helped kidnap Israelis. Two others were tracked to sites
where scores of Israeli civilians were shot and killed. Others
coordinated logistics for the assault, including procuring weapons.
Of the 12 Unrwa employees with links to the attacks, seven were primary
or secondary school teachers, including two math teachers, two Arabic
language teachers and one primary school teacher.
The information in the intelligence reports—based on what an official
described as very sensitive signals intelligence as well as cellphone
tracking data, interrogations of captured Hamas fighters and documents
recovered from dead militants, among other things—were part of a
briefing given by Israel to U.S. officials that led Washington and
others to suspend aid to Unrwa.
Intelligence estimates shared with the U.S. conclude that around 1,200
of Unrwa’s roughly 12,000 employees in Gaza have links to Hamas or
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and about half have close relatives who
belong to the Islamist militant groups. Both groups have been designated
as terrorist organizations by the U.S. and others. Hamas has run Gaza
since a 2007 coup.
“Unrwa’s problem is not just ‘a few bad apples’ involved in the October
7 massacre,” said a senior Israeli government official. “The institution
as a whole is a haven for Hamas’ radical ideology.”
An Unrwa spokesperson on Monday declined to comment, saying an internal
U.N. investigation into the agency was under way.
Two officials familiar with the intelligence said the Unrwa employees
considered to have ties with militant groups were deemed to be
“operatives,” indicating they took active part in the organization’s
military or political framework. The report said 23% of Unrwa’s male
employees had ties to Hamas, a higher percentage than the average of 15%
for adult males in Gaza, indicating a higher politicization of the
agency than the population at large.
Nearly half of all Unrwa employees—an estimated 49%—also had close
relatives who also had official ties to the militant groups, especially
Hamas, the intelligence reports said.
In the aftermath of Oct. 7, as Israel has waged war against Hamas in
Gaza, Unrwa has emerged as one of the loudest voices decrying the impact
of the fierce fighting on Palestinians in the enclave, where authorities
say more than 26,000 people have been killed. Unrwa says at least 152 of
its own staff have been killed in the conflict.
The agency is also the main pillar of operations to move food aid,
medicine and other humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
The vast majority of Unrwa’s 30,000 staff across the Middle East are
Palestinian, and Israel and some in the U.S. have long accused it of
nurturing anti-Israeli sentiment in crowded refugee camps that have been
important recruiting grounds for militant groups, including Hamas.
The Trump administration suspended funding for Unrwa in 2018, saying the
agency’s mission was fundamentally misguided. The Biden administration
renewed funding in 2021.
The Oct. 7 intelligence reports seen by the Journal identified an Unrwa
Arabic teacher who the reports said was also a Hamas militant commander
and took part in a terrorist attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, where 97 people
were killed and about 26 people were kidnapped and taken as hostages to
Gaza.
Another Unrwa employee, described in the dossier as an Unrwa social
worker, played a role in absconding with the body of a dead Israeli
soldier, which was taken to Gaza, the reports said. He also coordinated
trucks and munitions distributions for Hamas before being killed.
A person familiar with the dossier said that after U.S. officials were
briefed on the intelligence material, they alerted Unrwa, which put out
a statement announcing the allegation that some of its employees were
linked to the attacks and saying it had fired the employees involved. It
provided no details, and didn’t say how many employees were involved.
On Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said he was
personally horrified by the allegations.
Unrwa commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini criticized Western nations
for pausing aid at a time when Gaza is facing a humanitarian crisis as
the war between Hamas and Israel rages. Guterres also implored nations
to not suspend humanitarian aid.
It is “immensely irresponsible to sanction an agency and an entire
community it serves because of allegations of criminal acts against some
individuals,” Lazzarini said.
Unrwa looks after more than 5 million Palestinians in densely-packed
refugee neighborhoods across the Middle East, including the West Bank,
Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. But its biggest operations are in Gaza, where
it looks after an estimated 80% of the local population and runs
hundreds of schools and scores of clinics.
Israel says it has documented deepening ties between Unrwa and Hamas
since the militant group cemented its hold on Gaza in 2007. Unrwa has
admitted to finding Hamas weapons stored in schools and Israel has
repeatedly said Hamas tunnels run under and through Unrwa buildings as
well as other civilian facilities. The former head of Unrwa’s union in
Gaza was fired in 2017 after Israel found out he had been elected to
Hamas’ top political leadership.
The dossier is the most detailed look yet at the widespread links
between the Unrwa employees and militants. It offers telling details
regarding the events of Oct. 7.
A math teacher belonging to Hamas was close enough to a female hostage
in Gaza that he took a picture of her. Another teacher was carrying an
antitank missile the night before the invasion.
One Unrwa employee set up an operations room for Palestinian Islamic
Jihad on Oct. 8, the day after the attack. Three other employees,
including another Arabic teacher at an Unrwa school, received a text
from Hamas to arm themselves at a staging area close to the border the
night before the attack. It was unclear whether they went.
A different elementary school teacher did cross into Israel and went to
Reim, a district where a kibbutz, an army base and a music festival were
attacked.
One of the intelligence reports seen by the Journal said a 13th Unrwa
employee, who didn’t have a discernible affiliation with a terror group,
also entered Israel. Hundreds of Gazan civilians flooded across the
border as part of the Hamas-led attack, Israel says.
Teachers make up nearly three-quarters of Unrwa’s Gaza-based local
staff. Unrwa schools, which use textbooks approved by the Palestinian
Authority, have come under fire for using materials that allegedly
glorify terrorists and promote hatred of Israel. Unrwa says it has taken
steps to address problematic content, but a 2019 U.S. Government
Accountability Office report said that measures haven’t always been
implemented.
Since Oct. 7, Hamas has stolen more than $1 million worth of Unrwa
supplies, including fuel and trucks, according to the intelligence
report. The intelligence assessment alleges that Hamas operatives are so
deeply enmeshed within the Unrwa aid-delivery enterprise as to
coordinate transfers for the organization.
Write to David Luhnow at david.luhnow-at-wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as Unrwa, was
incorrectly referred to as Unwra in one instance in an earlier version
of this article. (Corrected on Jan. 29)
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