Israel releases video ‘showing UN aid worker bundling limp body of shot Israeli into the back of an SUV’
For the first time, grisly footage has emerged to support Israel’s claim that UN personnel took part in the October 7 Hamas attacks that killed 1,200 people.
More than a dozen countries, including the US and Britain, suspended payments to the UN Relief and Works Agency in late January after Israel accused 12 agency employees of direct involvement in the Hamas-led attack.
Security footage has now been released showing Faisal Ali Musalam Al-Naami, 45, loading a shot Israeli into his SUV and driving away.
The graphic images were taken at the entrance to Kibbutz Beeri, where more than 100 people were killed, just three kilometers from the Gaza border.
“UNRWA has lost its legitimacy and can no longer function as a UN body,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said.
Three Israelis had already been dragged from their car and shot when the white Toyota Terrano arrived at the entrance to Kibbutz Beeri near Gaza early on October 7.
The man is seen getting out of the SUV with a friend two miles away in Israel before the pair open the trunk door
Israel claims to have identified the man as UNRWA social worker Faisal Ali Musalam Al-Naami, 45 years old.
In the film, a man believed to be Al-Naami is seen stopping his white Nissan Terrano near the motionless bodies of three Israeli men who had previously been dragged from a car and shot.
A man emerges from the passenger side of Terrano with a semi-automatic machine gun before Al-Naami gets out and helps him clear a space in the back of the car.
The pair then grab one of the injured men between them and drag him into the SUV before covering his face with a blanket.
They then return to his belongings scattered across the blood-stained road and search them before Al-Naami pockets a mobile phone.
They completely ignore the other two men and see them backing away from the scene less than 90 seconds after arriving.
Al-Naami was one of 12 men first named by Gallant on Friday, but he said Israeli intelligence suggests as many as 30 others may have taken part.
“Of the 13,000 UNRWA employees, 12 percent are affiliated with Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ),” he said.
Israel claims that Al-Naami was a member of the Hamas brigade in his hometown of Nuseirat and had also transported weapons and trucks used in the October 7 attack.
The footage shows the two men approaching an off-duty IDF soldier who is lying motionless on the road
The pair then grab both ends of the injured man and carry him to the SUV where someone covers his face with a blanket
Less than 90 seconds after arriving, the pair reversed and disappeared with the injured Israeli to an unknown destination
Israel has also revealed details about a second UNRWA employee it says took part in the October 7 Hamas attack
‘It is known that 1,468 workers are active in Hamas and PIJ.
“One hundred and eighty-five UNRWA employees are active in the military branches of Hamas and 51 are active in the military branch of the PIJ,” he added.
The agency was founded in 1948 to care for Palestinian refugees displaced during the war that established Israel as a state.
It is now the largest UN agency and recruits its staff overwhelmingly from the Palestinian population in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Naami worked as a social worker, according to a colleague who spoke to the Washington Post, while Israel said nine of the 12 worked in schools as teachers or counselors.
The agency is also the main vehicle for delivering aid to Gaza’s 2.3 million residents; more than a quarter are at immediate risk of famine, the group said.
All schools and health centers have been converted into shelters for some of the 1.8 million people displaced by the Israeli invasion.
All twelve named suspects were immediately dismissed by the agency, with UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini saying he could not afford to give them the benefit of the doubt.
“My judgment, based on this announcement, true or false, was that I needed to make the quickest and boldest decision to demonstrate that as an agency we take this allegation seriously.”
Israel said Al-Naami was a member of the Hamas brigade in his hometown of Nuseirat and had also transported weapons and trucks used in the October 7 attack.
His UNRWA colleague said he was killed along with his wife and five of his children in an Israeli airstrike on his home just nine days later.
“His personality was calm, he was very cheerful, he was friendly, he was loved by everyone, colleagues, customers and beneficiaries,” his colleague told The Post.
Israel said the injured man was an IDF soldier and it is unknown what happened to him after he was carried into the SUV.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, at least 28,775 people, mostly women and children, have been killed and 68,552 injured since the start of the war in Gaza.
Nearly three-quarters of the population drinks from contaminated water sources and half are now crammed into the southern border town of Rafah as Israel prepares to attack the city.
Yoav Gallant, the former IDF general (pictured), told a group of reporters during a briefing on Friday that about 12 percent of UNRWA staff were members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
People in Gaza inspect the damage to their homes after an Israeli airstrike on Sunday
A Palestinian man is seen with his baby in front of the makeshift tents on Saturday as Palestinian families who left their homes and sought shelter in the city of Rafah protect themselves from Israeli attacks
President Joe Biden warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week that an attack on the city “must not occur without a credible and actionable plan to ensure the safety and support of the more than one million people sheltering there.”
But Washington said it would again veto this week’s U.N. Security Council resolution on a ceasefire.
Last night, Netanyahu said those concerned about an offensive in Rafah are telling the country to “lose the war against Hamas.”
“It is true that there is a lot of opposition abroad, but this is exactly the moment when we have to say that we will not do half or a third of the work,” he stressed.