Israel says 15 UNRWA staff participated in October 7 massacre and kidnapping

The Australian government was briefed one day before it reinstated UNRWA funding that Israel now believed 15 – not 12 – of the agency’s staff had participated in the massacre.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki with Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong in the West Bank.

One day before it announced the reinstatement of funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency, the government was briefed on the latest Israeli intelligence findings suggesting the number of UNRWA employees who took part in the October 7 massacre had grown from 12 to 15.

The Israeli briefing to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Thursday indicated that an increasing number of UNRWA employees in Gaza were being found to be involved in the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.

The briefing also reflected Israel’s firm conviction that Hamas operatives were embedded across all sectors of UNRWA’s activities in Gaza and that the organisation was “beyond repair” and “must be stopped.”

Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Friday said UNRWA would resume receiving $6m a year in funding from Australia after a temporary pause was announced in January, with the UN this week finding that people in Gaza were starving to death and 1.1 million people were facing catastrophic conditions.

The resumption of funding by Australia was announced despite two reviews into UNRWA having not been completed. These include the probes by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Ser­vices and a separate review headed by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna to assess the neutrality of UNRWA and its efforts to ensure neutrality.

Senator Wong said on Friday that UNRWA was “not a terrorist organisation, and that existing and additional safeguards sufficiently protect Australian taxpayer funding.”

An updated funding agreement between UNRWA and Australia is being finalised that includes stringent conditions such as guarantees of staff neutrality and confidence in supply chains. Senator Wong said this was an “ongoing process of diligence and vigilance.”

DFAT was informed on Thursday that Israel had now concluded that 15 UNRWA employees had participated in the October 7 attack and crossed over into Israel, directly assisted in kidnappings or helped with the transfer of weapons. These UNRWA staff included teachers, social workers and school counsellors.

The Israeli intelligence briefing suggested there were 2,135 UNRWA employees who were active members of a terrorist organisation and that 1,650 of the agency’s employees were Hamas members. DFAT officials were told 485 UNRWA staff were operatives in the military wings of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Israeli intelligence has concluded that 18 UNRWA school principals in Gaza are combat militants and that 32 UNRWA facilities either host terrorist infrastructure or are located within 20 metres of tunnels, tunnel shafts, rocket launch sites, command centres and arms warehouses.

Two schools, including the Maghazi Prep B Boys School and the Zaitun Prep A Boys School, were found by Israeli intelligence to have tunnels underneath them managed by Hamas military wing members.

The Israeli military has also revealed in recent weeks that the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza was located above a 700 metre long, 18 metre deep tunnel which hosted a “sever-farm” which served as the heart of the Hamas communications network.

Israel has argued that weapons, including magazine clips, have been stored inside UNRWA bags located inside UNRWA facilities. It says the focus on delivering humanitarian aid must shift from UNRWA to other alternative mechanisms such as the UN’s World Food Program.

A spokeswoman for Senator Wong said the government was engaging directly with Israel. “We continue to seek more information, and look to Israel to co-operate fully with the UN processes underway,” she said. “We note that UNRWA has long provided full lists of its staff to Israel.”

This is contested by Israel, which argues that the lists it is provided with are not current.

The updated Israeli intelligence assessment comes as a UN-backed food security assessment warned on Monday that half of Gazans were experiencing “catastrophic” hunger, with famine projected to hit the north of the territory by May unless there is urgent intervention.

Cindy McCain, head of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), said that people in Gaza were “starving to death right now. The speed at which this man-made hunger and malnutrition crisis has ripped through Gaza is terrifying.”