UNRWA funding decision ignores terror findings

It may not be what it wants to hear, but the Albanese government must not ignore the startling new accounts that are emerging about the extent of the involvement by UNRWA employees in Hamas and the terrorists’ barbaric October 7 slaughter of 1200 Jews. As Joe Kelly reported, a detailed briefing on updated Israeli intelligence was provided to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade last Thursday. It indicated more UNRWA employees than initially believed – some 15 – were directly involved in the massacre. It also reflected Israel’s firm conviction that Hamas terrorists were “embedded across all sectors of the UNRWA’s activities in Gaza” and the organisation was “beyond repair”.

That is no surprise given Israel’s conclusion that of the UNRWA’s 12,000 employees in Gaza (30,000 in the region), at least 2135 “were active members of a terrorist organisation and 1650 were Hamas members”. DFAT officials were told 485 UNRWA staff were “operatives” in the military wings of Hamas or its allied, Iran-sponsored terrorist organisation, Islamic Jihad. Details were provided, too, of other, no less alarming intelligence. They included chapter and verse on the 18 UNRWA school principals in Gaza who, Israel has concluded, are “combat militants” and the 32 UNRWA facilities that either host terrorist infrastructure or are (suspiciously) located handily within 20m of Hamas tunnels, tunnel shafts, rocket launch sites, command centres and arms stores. Yet the next day – last Friday – Foreign Minister Penny Wong, despite the briefing given to her department, went ahead with an announcement that Australia was resuming funding of the UNRWA, having concluded it was “not a terrorist organisation”, and “existing and additional safeguards sufficiently protect Australian taxpayer funding”. Really?

Senator Wong’s empathetic rush to restore Australian funding is all very well. She is far from alone in her distress over the plight of Gaza’s civilians. But Australia’s national interest demands better than a precipitous decision to resume sending millions of taxpayer dollars a year to an outfit shot through with terrorist-supporting employees whose salaries we help to pay. Significantly, the US has decided to continue its ban on funding until at least March 2025. As Paul Kelly wrote on Wednesday of Senator Wong’s decision: “It is not a safe decision. It is hardly a national interest decision. It is, however, an overwhelming domestic political decision.”

Alternatives to the UNRWA, such as the UN’s World Food Program, do exist.