UNRWA head claims key allegation of Hamas collaboration lawsuit is false
The head of UNRWA, the United Nations’ embattled Palestinian-only aid and social services agency, told JNS it disputes a key section of a civil lawsuit filed against the agency by victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre.
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), City on Oct. 12, 2021. Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90.
The lawsuit alleges, in part, that UNRWA helped funnel millions of dollars each month to Hamas by insisting on a policy the plaintiffs say applies only in Gaza: the payment of employee salaries and other expenses in U.S. dollars, rather in the local currency of Israeli shekels.
The suit, filed on June 24 in New York federal court, alleges that the scheme forces UNRWA employees to turn to Hamas and Hamas-affiliated money changers to exchange dollars for shekels, thereby providing the terrorist organization with significant funds through exchange fees.
At a press briefing on Friday in New York in connection to a pledging conference held by UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner-general, disputed the assertion, saying the payment in dollars applies not only in Gaza.
“We pay salaries in dollars in Lebanon, and we pay also our staff in Syria on a dollar basis, like we do in Gaza,” said Lazzarini in response to a JNS inquiry in the briefing. He did not specify whether or not the policy applied to UNRWA staff serving Palestinians in Jordan or Judea and Samaria, or Arabs in Jerusalem.
JNS has reached out for comment to the law firm that filed the suit.
Lazzarini said he believed—and his staff later confirmed to JNS—that cash assistance to Gazans is paid in shekels.
JNS also asked Lazzarini why UNRWA, which for unclear reasons took over the tracking of the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs during this war, is publicizing figures that have since shown to be far off the mark, leading to consequential accusations against Israel of denial of aid and intentional starvation of Gazans.
The U.N.-linked Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which had asserted for months that famine was taking place in Gaza, changed those assessments after a recent IPC Famine Review Committee analysis found that significant private and commercial food deliveries, and even those of the U.N.’s own World Food Program, were being left out of the count.
UNRWA and Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) office, which facilitates logistical coordination between Israel and Gaza, have been in a months-long public dispute over the screening and entry of aid.
COGAT has published pictures and video of massive amounts of aid trucks sitting idle on the Gaza side of the border after having gone through Israel’s security screening, and faulting the United Nations for failing to deliver the aid.
Opaque methodology
It has also asserted that UNRWA is only present at a few select points of entry, and only counts aid when an UNRWA representative is physically available, yet publishes data implying they present a complete picture of the aid situation, and uses an opaque methodology to do so.
UNRWA has insisted Israel regularly denies approval for or fails to protect aid missions, and is publishing misleading figures, such as counting trucks that are only half-full due to security reasons as being full.
In his response to JNS, Lazzarini attempted to de-twine the IPC’s assessments from UNRWA’s figures.
“The IPC, basically, is to measure how acute the malnutrition could be in Gaza. And this is measured by experts” from a number of U.N. agencies, said Lazzarini. “And they don’t count the number of trucks coming in. They look at what’s available in the market for the people, and do people have access to what is available or not available.”
Lazzarini noted that UNRWA is only present at the Rafah and Kerem Shalom entrances to Gaza that it operates, “so we can monitor only what comes in for the broader U.N. community.”
UNRWA does not have a counting presence at the Erez or Gate 96 crossings or the Gaza pier, nor does it count air drops, because, Lazzarini told JNS, it was not authorized by Israel.
However, UNRWA is assisting with the collection of U.N. aid trucks from all of the crossings, including Erez and the pier, according to COGAT.
Lazzarini also dismissed the discrepancies on truck numbers, adding that the size of a truck screened by Israel may differ from the size of the truck picking up the goods on the Gaza side of the border.
“I was asked recently in a press conference who is telling the truth. I say everyone is telling his own truth when it comes to the trucks and what is coming in, but the way of counting has been different, and we are also talking about different sizes of trucks,” said Lazzarini.
“But ultimately,” he said, “it has all to do with what is really available and accessible for the people. And if it is not available and not accessible, that’s where it started to impact people.”
Still, the IPC has been leaning on UNRWA statistics to assess how much food is available to reach aid recipients and markets, which could explain why its assessments have been far off target.
Lazzarini said earlier on Friday that the total amount of pledges from Friday’s event would not be known until this week, but he was confident there would be enough new funding to keep UNRWA operating through the end of September, and that he was optimistic that the United Kingdom, under its new government, would soon restore the funding it suspended in the wake of allegations that UNRWA employees participating in Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.
The only countries among the 16 that suspended funding that are still doing so are the U.K. and the United States. Washington is normally UNRWA’s biggest donor, but Congress has prohibited any payments to the agency until March 25, 2025.
Just before Friday’s conference started, 118 countries, including the United States, signed a declaration of strong support for UNRWA. No U.S. representatives attended the pledging conference.
Still, Lazzarini said “it was a very good sign,” which indicates that the Biden administration “are also providing the necessary political support to the agency.”
