Officials from the Palestinian aid organization UNWRA are said to have participated in the brutal Hamas attack on October 7. This now has consequences. The organization has long been heavily criticized.
Amman/Gaza/Tel Aviv/London. Due to suspicion that officials from the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA) were involved in the Hamas attack on Israel from Gaza on October 7 , the Israel-based organization came under fire Amman (Jordan) and Gaza came under heavy pressure. In recent days, the US, Canada, Australia and on Saturday Britain and Italy suspended their payments. Germany could follow.
Austria doesn't want to go that far for now. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told “Presse am Sonntag” that in any case no payment was due “immediately”. Austria annually transfers a fixed amount of 400,000 euros to the aid organization and three million euros to a health project. They are now calling for “clarification, clarification, clarification”, it is said, and this has also been stated “unequivocally” at UN headquarters in New York and Amman.
Reports recently emerged that twelve UNRWA personnel took part in the attack, but how specific was not stated. UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini, a Swiss, said the contracts of these people had been terminated and the matter was being investigated. UN chief António Guterres wants the humanitarian organization to be examined and Israel wants to expel it from Gaza after the end of the war.
One-sided politicized organization
UNRWA, created in 1949, is already widely criticized; It is said, for example, that its employees, most of whom come from the Arab-Islamic region, are politically sympathetic to the Palestinians and their cause, that there is anti-Israel content in teaching materials for children in UNRWA schools, that weapons were found in UNRWA facilities – and that the refugee status of Palestinians is being discussed indefinitely, inherited, even though they are already well integrated in other states. UNRWA is the only refugee relief organization that is interested in ensuring that people in its area of responsibility always remain formally refugees and this also applies to their descendants of the nth generation. In fact, around 700,000 Palestinians were formally expelled in the late 1940s and have now increased to more than five million.
Furthermore: UNRWA has around 30,000 employees. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Geneva, which explicitly does not work for Palestine but works around the world and therefore cares for many more people, recently had around 19,000 employees.
Attacks against Houthi in Yemen
Meanwhile, British and US aircraft bombed the Yemeni Red Sea port of Ras Issa on Saturday, destroying at least one anti-ship missile prepared for the Houthi militia. They support Hamas in the Gaza war and therefore attack merchant ships. An oil tanker from Singapore was set on fire on Friday and the fire on the Marlin Luanda is reportedly under control. (ag./quarrel/wg)