UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced on Monday the creation of an independent committee to assess the “neutrality” of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and its functioning, after allegations were made against several of its employees.
• Also read: Aim of the criticism: Nomination of UNRWA for the Nobel Peace Prize
• Also read: Israeli allegations: UNRWA considers independent investigation “very important”
• Also read: Blinking in the Middle East to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza
This evaluation group is led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna in collaboration with three research centers (Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden, Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway and the Danish Institute for Human Rights), says a press release.
UNRWA has been at the center of controversy since Israel accused 12 of its 30,000 regional staff of involvement in the Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas that killed 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count .
In response, a dozen countries, including major donors such as the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Sweden, announced they would suspend their funding of the agency, which said last week that it would stop its activities “until… “threatened at the end of February”.
The aim of the evaluation group set up on Monday is to “determine whether the agency is doing everything in its power to ensure its neutrality and, where appropriate, respond to allegations of serious abuses”.
He must submit an interim report to Antonio Guterres by the end of March and then a final report by the end of April, which will include, if necessary, recommendations to “improve and strengthen” the existing mechanisms.
The Secretary-General “notes that these allegations come at a time when UNRWA, the main UN agency in the region, is working under very difficult conditions to help the two million Gaza residents survive in the center of the Gaza Strip depends on it.” one of the worst and most complex humanitarian crises in the world.
This independent assessment comes in parallel with an internal UN investigation launched in January following the allegations against the 12 UNRWA employees.