A UN aid worker believed by Israel to have been involved in the October 7 attacks was caught on video that day removing the limp body of an Israeli man who had been shot at Kibbutz Beeri drove away, according to information released Friday by Israeli authorities.
Israel told the United Nations Palestine Relief Agency last month that 45-year-old Faisal Ali Musalam Naami and 11 other UNRWA workers took part in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that triggered Israel's war in the besieged Palestinian territories. participated or supported him. Israeli authorities say Hamas and allied gunmen have killed 1,200 Israelis and taken about 253 people hostage in the Gaza Strip.
The explosive allegations plunged the United Nations into crisis and led the United States – the organization's largest donor – and other nations to stop funding the aid agency and threaten to collapse its operations in Gaza and the wider Middle East.
The UN agency is struggling to serve Gaza as scrutiny over alleged Hamas links increases
The footage of the person Israel identified as Naami would be the first publicly released from any of the accused people involved in the attack. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant released a screenshot of the video at a news conference on Friday as part of a dossier publicly identifying the accused aid workers. “UNRWA has lost its legitimacy and can no longer function as a UN body,” Gallant said.
The CCTV footage, independently located by The Washington Post, provides a more comprehensive picture than that Short report in the public dossier stating that Naami was “involved in the kidnapping of a soldier from Beeri”. Israel has also accused Naami of being part of a Hamas brigade in his hometown of Nuseirat.
After he was named in confidential Israeli documents last month, The Post found images of Naami online and then used facial recognition software to find a likely match for him in footage from Oct. 7. The Post found further evidence that suggests Naami is the person in the footage. A Nissan Terrano II in the footage appears to match the same make and model of car that Naami is pictured with in social media posts, including the damaged trim on a rear window.
Before Friday's press conference, a security official told the Post that Israeli authorities had identified the man in the footage as Naami. The footage was among the evidence Israel used as the basis for its accusations against Naami, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
In the footage from October 7th, the SUV drives towards an open gate Shortly after 9:30 a.m. we reach Kibbutz Beeri and stop briefly in the entryway, where three men who were shot and dragged from a car lie motionless on the ground.
Two men get out of the SUV. The driver, identified as Naami, is wearing glasses that match photos from his social media profiles. The other man carries a rifle. They open the back door of the vehicle and spread a blanket inside.
They approach one of those shot, a man on the street next to an overturned cooler. It is not clear if he is alive, but he does not react as the man, identified as Naami, grabs him by the jacket, the other man lifts his legs and they carry him to the trunk and place him inside.
They then rummage through the belongings scattered on the street, take a cell phone and a hat and drive off less than three minutes after they arrived. It is not clear why or where the two men took the Israeli or why they left the other bodies behind.
At the Post's request, two vehicle forensics experts analyzed Naami's social media photos that showed partial views of a white vehicle. They identified the car as a 1993-1995 Nissan Terrano II and said the vehicle shown in the Oct. 7 footage was the same color, make and model, and was from the same generation.
Marcus Mazza, a vehicle technology expert at Robson Forensic, a company that provides technical expertise in court cases, said the separate panel could also “indicate that it is the same vehicle.”
On October 16, Naami, five of his children and one of his two wives were killed in a strike at their home in Nuseirat, according to a UNRWA colleague who spoke on condition of anonymity because agency staff were instructed not to interact with them say the media. His name, the name of a woman who appears to be his wife, and the names of his children are on the Gaza Health Ministry's list of those killed in Israeli attacks.
The Israel Defense Forces told the Post that they were “not aware of any attack in the specified area or timing.” Asked whether Naami had been targeted, a spokesman did not respond on condition of anonymity in accordance with agency protocol.
Efforts to reach surviving members of Naami's family were unsuccessful. According to the colleague and the Israeli dossier, Naami was a social worker at the UN agency.
“His personality was calm, he was very cheerful, he was friendly, he was loved by everyone, colleagues, customers and beneficiaries,” the colleague told The Post.
The colleague said they did not know whether Naami was involved in the attack or a member of Hamas. The colleague showed a photo of Naami from the Oct. 7 footage and said they didn't know if it was him “as his facial features are not clearly visible.”
Israeli officials have long complained that the UN agency is closely linked to Hamas – allegations that UNRWA has denied.
The UN agency was founded in 1949 to help Palestinians who were displaced or forced from their homes during the founding of Israel. In the decades that followed, the authority took on many of the responsibilities of a state for stateless Palestinians, such as providing food, health care and schools. Refugee camps in the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria have turned into permanent urban slums.
The allegations that aid workers were members of the organization threaten the existence of the main channel for aid to the 2.2 million people in Gaza, whose lives have been upended after nearly four months of war. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, at least 28,775 people have been killed and 68,552 injured in Gaza since the war began.
Since October 7, UNRWA-run schools and medical clinics have been closed and converted into emergency shelters, now housing more than a million people. Palestinians in Gaza are almost entirely dependent on UNRWA for their vital needs as starvation threatens and disease spreads alongside constant Israeli ground and air strikes.
On Friday, Gallant said that in addition to the 12 workers, Israel had intelligence indicating that over 30 UNRWA employees were involved in the massacre, including the hostage-taking. He said 12 percent of UNRWA's 13,000 staff were affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller Islamist group in the Gaza Strip.
The agency denies turning a blind eye to Hamas and says Israeli authorities have long sought to dismantle UNRWA.
Last week, the Israeli army reportedly discovered an underground Hamas server complex buried 20 meters beneath the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza. On Tuesday evening, the Israeli army released a video of a tunnel under Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, said to be the hideout of Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar. The underground deliveries included UNRWA packages.
In response to the allegations, UNRWA launched a review last month and fired 10 of the accused staff members before investigating the allegations. two others were dead. The United States and other countries have indicated they could restore funding after the review is published.
UNRWA spokeswoman Tamara Alrifai said a man using Naami's name joined the agency in 2006 as a social worker. However, she said she could not comment on the ongoing investigation or verify whether he was present in the footage shared by The Post.
UNRWA had “not [been] “I have not received any evidence from the Israeli authorities,” she said, adding. “UNRWA has only received from the Israeli government the list of names of suspected personnel reportedly involved in the horrific attacks on July 10.”
Souad Mekhennet in Washington, Evan Hill in New York and Shira Rubin in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.