UN acknowledges that nine of its employees were allegedly involved in the Oct. 7 massacre

The U.N. announced Monday that according to the results of an investigation it recently conducted, nine employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) may have participated in the Oct. 7 massacre perpetrated by Hamas and other terrorist groups in southern Israel, and therefore decided to dismiss the workers in question.

Farhan Haq, U.N. deputy spokesman, stated that the evidence was "sufficient" to conclude that it is possible that the nine workers were involved in the terrorist attack.

Last November, the Institute for International Policy and Research (IMPACT-se), an Israeli NGO that monitors textbooks in Palestinian and Israeli schools, revealed that more than 100 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists involved in the Oct. 7 massacre are graduates of the UNRWA education system.

IMPACT-se's research was used as part of Israel's evidence presented to the U.N. to prove there was incitement to violence in UNRWA schools and that some of its employees were involved in the Oct. 7 massacre. 

In February, Israel published the faces and charges against some UNRWA workers for their alleged direct involvement in the Oct. 7 massacre.

In the same month, Israel reported that its military had found a network of Hamas tunnels under UNRWA buildings and suggested there was no way the agency was unaware.

In all, the U.N. opened an investigation into 19 of its employees for their alleged involvement in the Oct. 7 massacre, and 12 of them, who were indicted by Israel in January, were fired. It was later revealed that some of them were killed in the war.

However, the U.N. recently indicated that the investigations into four of the 12 dismissed employees and one into the remaining seven were suspended, so investigations actually continued into only 14 UNRWA workers.

'Too little too late'

Israeli U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan took aim at the United Nations and its agency. The official said the U.N. investigation, which focused only on 19 UNRWA employees, is "a disgrace" and "too little too late." He added that the organization ignored thousands of the agency's employees who were involved in Hamas terrorist activities and the extent of their involvement.

Erdan remarked that Israel provided detailed information on more than 100 UNRWA employees "who are members of Hamas." And he added that despite the cooperation and information the Jewish state provided to the UN, the findings of the investigation are "another embarrassment" for the international organization, which "continues to refuse to accept reality." 

"And if that wasn't enough, the secretary-general [António Guterres] recently decided to award UNRWA-Gaza the U.N. Secretary-General's Award for 2023. The secretary-general should resign and UNRWA should be closed. Israel must act swiftly now to outlaw UNRWA, declare it a terrorist organization and expel its leaders from Israel, without allowing them entry," Erdan concluded.