The Israeli army and the Shin Bet claim to have found it a hidden Hamas military complex deep in the headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip. The alleged involvement of a dozen of its members in the Hamas attack on Israeli soil on October 7, which killed almost 1,200 people, has already suffered a major blow to UNRWA’s reputation. A complaint that the agency itself is investigating in response to demands from Israel, which submitted a six-page report with images and photos of 11 people, linking about 190 UNRWA employees to Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
But this Saturday the allegations got even worse. According to the Israeli army, the Palestinian Islamist organization had founded an important organization Communications and news center which was also powered by electricity from the UN supply. The well found in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood “led to a tunnel route that served as a key Hamas military intelligence post, 18 meters below UNRWA headquarters,” the UNRWA statement said. Defense of Israel (IDF).
A team of Israeli Army engineers has told several reporters from local and international media such as: B. the tunnels are shown The Times of Israel either The Wall Street Journal. The informants involved in the visit had access a fountain next to a school on the edge of the UN complex. According to the agency, they descended into the concrete-lined tunnel Reuterson a roughly 15-minute route through a “narrow, winding and suffocating” passageway that led inside the UNRWA headquarters.
According to the army, the tunnel, which was 700 meters long and 18 meters deep, branched out and revealed side rooms. There was an office room with steel safes that had been opened and emptied. Also a tiled toilet. There was a large chamber full computer serveranother industrial battery cell, according to reconstruction by Reuters.
Israeli soldiers who stormed the agency’s headquarters, where the offices of several humanitarian and international organizations are located, said they found it inside “many weapons, including firearms, ammunition, grenades and explosives”, which they showed on a blanket. The military claims that UNRWA staff knew about Hamas’s activities, and Israeli military intelligence estimates that about 10% of its staff have some connection to the militant group.
The United Nations agency responded with a statement saying calls for an “independent investigation”. In his letter, he states that his workers evacuated the headquarters on October 12, five days after the start of the war in Gaza, so he “could neither confirm nor otherwise comment” on the discovery published by the IDF. UNRWA says it does not have “the military and security experience or ability to conduct military inspections of what is or may be located in its facilities.”
The existence of a compound used by Hamas for military purposes directly beneath the UN facilities is evidence of the systematic and widespread use of civilian infrastructure as “human shields” and by The instrumentalization of the agency The Israeli authorities condemn the actions carried out by the Palestinian Islamist organization. The Palestinians, on the other hand, accuse Israel Falsifying evidence to tarnish UNRWA’s imagea humanitarian organization that employs around 13,000 people in the Gaza Strip and has been a lifeline for a large portion of Gaza’s population for decades.
During his military operation in the Gaza Strip, which he left more than 28,000 deadThe Israeli army has found several entrances to the extensive network of tunnels operated by the Islamists near some of the most important hospital centers in the Gaza Strip. But UNRWA staff’s alleged involvement in 7-O led major donors, including the United States, to stop funding the organization.
UNRWA manages Schools, primary care clinics and other social services. It serves 58 refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza and provides emergency financial, medical and social assistance to the 1.2 million registered Palestinian refugees living in the Gaza Strip. As the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave worsens, the agency’s importance will only grow.