NEW YORK — Israelis taken hostage or lost loved ones during Hamas attack on October 7 file charges the United Nations agency that helps the Palestiniansalleging that it helped finance the militants by paying agency staffers in US dollars and thereby sending them to money changers in Gaza who allegedly give Hamas a cut.
But the agency, known as UNWRA, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that staffers were paid in dollars at their discretion. Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank do not have their own national currency and mainly use Israeli shekels.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in a U.S. federal court in New York, marks the latest challenge for the beleaguered U.N. agency, which has been the main provider of food, water and shelter to civilians during World War II. the war between Israel and Hamas. The Israeli government has long attacked the more than 70-year-old organization, and control has intensified during the eight-month war, prompting UNRWA to defend itself as it struggles with a a spiraling humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“UNRWA’s personnel, facilities, and ability to transport cash US dollars into Gaza were a powerful pillar of Hamas’s plan to carry out the October 7 attack,” says the lawsuit, which alleges that the U.N. agency “systematically and deliberately aided and supported Hamas and its allies.” goals.”
UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said on Tuesday that he only learned of the case through the media.
“I don’t know what the status of this lawsuit is, but for now I see this as an additional way to put pressure on the agency,” he said at a news conference in Geneva.
UNRWA has denied knowingly supporting Hamas or any other militant group.
Israel invaded Gaza after Hamas’s attack on October 7, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped about 250. The war has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of dozens of Israelis, including survivors of the October 7 attack, relatives of the victims and rescued prisoners. It reflects a number of complaints their government has made, ranging from claims that UNRWA employs Hamas operatives to complaints about the content of textbooks in UNRWA-run schools.
But the lawsuit also takes aim at the agency’s practice of paying its 13,000 employees in Gaza in US dollars. The money is transferred from a bank in New York and trucked to Gaza, according to the legal complaint, which states that payroll totaled at least $20 million per month from 2018 through last September.
UNRWA employees use local money changers to convert their dollars into Israeli shekels, the complaint said.
Some Palestinians also use dollars or Jordanian dinars and consider them stable and trusted currencies.
The lawsuit alleges that Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007, controls “the majority” of currency exchangers and takes a fee of 10% to 25% of the rest, “leaving a predictable percentage of UNRWA’s payroll to Hamas.” in dollars. useful for black market arms transactions.
“Hamas’ ability to carry out the October 7 attack would have been significantly and possibly fatally weakened without the funds provided by UNRWA,” the complaint said.
The complaint points to a 2018 report commissioned by UNRWA on the provision of cash assistance, which noted the risks of embezzlement, fraud or other diversion from the intended purpose.
UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma said in a message to the AP that Gaza workers requested that “they be paid in US dollars because Gaza has no official national currency.”
Touma said the UN, including UNRWA, and its officials are immune from lawsuits. She declined to comment further on the case in question, saying the agency was not officially served by it.
One of the plaintiffs’ lead lawyers, Gavi Mairone, said in a statement on Tuesday that they did not believe the UN and officials named in the lawsuit had immunity, “and certainly not from these claims.”
UNRWA, formally called the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, was established to assist the estimated 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from what is now Israel during the 1948 war around the country’s founding. Their descendants now number almost 6 million.
The agency runs schools, health clinics, infrastructure projects and aid programs in refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, more than 1.7 million people have sought shelter in UNRWA facilities. At least 500 displaced people were killed when such facilities were attacked, according to UNWRA statistics released on Friday. The agency has lost nearly 200 employees.
Two UN officials said on Tuesday that the world body warned Israel against aid operations in Gaza would be suspended unless protection of humanitarian workers improve.
Israel has accused UNRWA of allowing Hamas to exploit its aid and facilities, and Israel claimed this winter that a dozen UNRWA employees participated in the October 7 attacks.
The allegations prompted the U.S. and more than a dozen other countries to do so suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to the agency, although all but the US and Britain have resumed their funding. Lazzarini said Tuesday that new donors have also arrived, but the agency still faces a deficit of up to $140 million at the end of the year.
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El Deeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed.