Philippe Lazzarini, director of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), spoke today for the first time at the UN General Assembly following Israel’s accusations against the agency: after accusing UNRWA of having twelve Hamas collaborators among its ranks, Israel would not have provided evidence linking these twelve workers to the attacks of October 7, as Lazzarini declared today.
Lazzarinni has defended the cleanliness of the institution he directs before the Assembly, and has assured that Israel intends to “eliminate the role of UNRWA as protector of the Palestinian people and (its role) as a witness to their drama”, as Europe has indicated. Press.
UNRWA, under the spotlight
The director of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, relearned today that Israel never provided evidence demonstrating the involvement of twelve of its employees in the terrorist attacks that Hamas launched on October 7 against Israel. Lazzarini, speaking before the General Assembly for the first time since Tel Aviv launched its accusations, further said that Israel seeks to “eliminate UNRWA’s role as protector of the Palestinian people and (its role) as a witness to their drama.”
Last January, Tel Aviv claimed that twelve Agency workers had been involved in the preparation of the October 7 terrorist attacks, which killed 1,200 Israeli citizens. These accusations caused countries of the weight of United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Canada – among others – withdraw funding from this UN agency, which would have lost 450 million dollars in its budget.
From the beginning, Lazzarini rejected the accusations and, despite Israel’s request, also refused to resign. Through the social network X, Lazzarini also responded to the Israeli army, which accused the organization of hosting Hamas headquarters in its facilities in Gaza. “UNRWA is a humanitarian and human development organization that lacks the necessary military and security expertiseas well as the ability to carry out military inspections of what is or could be found in its facilities“the agency’s secretary stated then.
Just three days ago, Lazarinni thanked through his X profile for the European Commission’s decision to contribute 50 million euros to the agency’s humanitarian aid tasks. “The European Union has long been a partner of UNRWA in providing aid to Palestinian refugees in the region. The full disbursement of the EU contribution is key to the agency’s ability to maintain its operations in a very volatile area“, has declared.
