UNRWA criticism ‘exaggerated’: DFAT official says
Penny Wong’s department says some critics of the UN’s agency in Gaza have exaggerated claims of misconduct by the organisation.
Penny Wong’s department says some Australian critics of the UN’s aid agency in Gaza exaggerate claims of misconduct by the organisation because they want to see it disbanded.
As the UN investigates allegations that a dozen of its employees participated in Hamas’s October 7 massacre of Israelis, a senior Foreign Affairs official said the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees had long faced accusations by groups seeking to attack it “at every turn”.
“And unfortunately, often these reports can contain a significant amount of exaggeration,” the head of the department’s Middle East division, Marc Innes-Brown, told Senate estimates. “So the agenda is, and this is well known, for UNRWA to be disbanded.”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said it was true his organisation had long had an agenda when it came to UNRWA – to force greater scrutiny of an agency that was “riddled with corruption and extremism”.
“The fact that it took credible reports of UNRWA facilities being used as weapons depots, its supplies being siphoned by Hamas and its employees joining the October 7 terror attacks for anything to be done is deeply concerning,” Mr Ryvchin said.
Their comments came as Anthony Albanese joined with his Canadian and New Zealand counterparts to implore Israel to call off its planned ground invasion of the southern Gazan city of Rafa, where an estimated 1.4 homeless Palestinian civilians are sheltering.
“We urge the Israeli government not to go down this path,” Mr Albanese, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said in a joint statement.
“There is simply nowhere else for civilians to go.”
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to press on with a “powerful” assault against Rafah, declaring that Hamas must be eliminated. “We will fight until complete victory and this includes a powerful action also in Rafah after we allow the civilian population to leave the battle zones,” he said.
The Israeli government said last week it had found a complex of computer servers under the UNRWA’s Gaza HQ, which allegedly served as a Hamas communications centre and intelligence hub.
Mr Innes-Brown said the Department had taken seriously a December warning by Australian Jewish leaders, who urged the Albanese government to cut funding to UNRWA amid “mounting evidence” it had aided Hamas’ attack.
He said the matter was raised directly with UNRWA, which had an interest in examining such claims because there were groups that were “seeking to attack UNRWA at every turn”.
Labor backbencher Maria Vamvakinou said Mr Innes-Brown’s comments reflected “longstanding attempts” to dismantle and target UNRWA by “the usual suspects”.
“UNRWA’s humanitarian and development mandate is central to the protection of Palestinian refugees, including those at the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” she said.
Ms Vamvakinou said the situation was so dire that funding for UNRWA should be reinstated by the government “immediately”.
Australia paid $20.6m in core funding to UNRWA in mid-October after Hamas’s massacre of Israelis, before then suspending an additional $6m over allegations some of the agency’s staff were involved in the October 7 attack.
The Foreign Minister said she wanted Australian funding for UNRWA to resume, but she could not ignore the allegations against the agency.
It emerged in Senate estimates that the government waived a condition enabling it to withhold 20 per cent of Australia’s annual support for the UN’s aid agency in Gaza until the completion of a performance assessment of the body.
DFAT deputy secretary Craig MacLachlan said the full payment was made because “the need was already becoming apparent”, and a performance assessment had been undertaken five months earlier.
“We felt the need justified us making that payment,” he said under questioning by Liberal senator Claire Chandler.
Senator Wong reiterated that Hamas must be denied any future governance role in Gaza, but she and her departmental officials were unable to say how the terrorist organisation should be removed if Israel was prevented from doing so.
Liberal senator David Fawcett said there was a “conundrum” at the heart of the government’s position over the war. “We don’t have a plan to remove Hamas. And yet Hamas has indicated if they remain in power, they will repeat the atrocities of October 7,” he said.
Mr MacLachlan said the US was the most influential party in finding a path forward, but declared: “We’re quite some way from that.”