URNWA - Hamas investigation. Thread 2

[EasterIssland]

Hi.
The previous thread finished on the weekend and a new one hasn’t been opened yet so thought I’d open it finished after some information released by idf about Hamas data center being under urnwa hq

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/conflict-in-the-middle-east/4995041-to-find-the-silence-about-unrwa-being-hamas-hypocritical

They’re doing it to it “legal” to
shoot to kill UN employees and
bomb/bulldoze all UN buildings, convoys.

Also to make it “legal”
expel all UN officials still in Israel
bar UN investigators from entering Israel and the OPT to gather evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It also makes it “legal” for them to seize the UN funding going to UNWRA as per the agreements in place, the UN funds go via Israel and must be approved and portioned out by Israel to the UNWRA offices in the OPT to ensure no funds end up benefitting Hamas.

I wonder if Israel will be tagged as a rogue state and expelled from the UN as they are certainly ignoring the UN and going against the UN charters they signed up to.

https://apnews.com/article/un-unrwa-staffers-fired-oct-7-cc33d0ab25dc4bacc0af1db10705e0d6

How many staffers and unwra staff have so far been fired or involved?

as per that link

The U.N. did not clarify how many have now been fired from the agency in total.

Nine have been fired due to potential links to Hamas. Nothing is proven. There isn’t enough evidence to refer to criminal investigation. It is all precautionary on the part of UNRWA.

Links can even mean things like was hired or forced to deliver goods that were then later used on Oct 7th or lent their motorcycle to a friend and he lent to to a terrorist who rode it into Israel for the attack or their sister is married to a Hamas terrorist. So often is an issue of close contacts known for a fact to be Hamas or Hamas having used something they own or unknowingly or forced to do some support function and thus suspicion they may be linked or involved too.

Nine have been fired due to potential links to Hamas.
Nine have been fired as there is sufficient evidence that they may have been involved in the armed attacks of October 7th. Not due to potential links with Hamas. Farhan Haq deputy spokesperson for the UN Secretary General agreed it was highly likely that the 9 employees of UNRWA have participated in October 7th attacks.

There isn’t enough evidence to refer to criminal investigation.
This has not been stated and is not under the remit of the OIOS.

It is all precautionary on the part of UNRWA.
Definitely not what was stated by the UN. The UN deputy spokesperson was challenged by journalists on his vague language and why indeed they were firing employees if the evidence is not conclusive. The spokesperson then acknowledged it was highly likely the 9 employees had participated in the October 7th attack.

Links can even mean things like was hired or forced to deliver goods that were then later used on Oct 7th or lent their motorcycle to a friend and he lent to to a terrorist who rode it into Israel for the attack or their sister is married to a Hamas terrorist. So often is an issue of close contacts known for a fact to be Hamas or Hamas having used something they own or unknowingly or forced to do some support function and thus suspicion they may be linked or involved too.

Participation in the October 7th attacks could also include butchering, burning, raping kidnapping, and keeping hostages, or perhaps even kidnapping dead bodies and putting them into the back of a car.

It doesn’t matter if 19, 12 , 9 or 0 UNRWA employees participated in the massacre of October 7th because UNRWA is the ideological backbone that gives birth decade after decade, generation after generation to the idea of return. It keeps the Palestinian forever war going against the Jews being sovereign in any part of the land.

It counts 5.9 million refugees.
It has not settled a single refugee in it’s history.
Almost none of them are refugees by International standards.
40% are citizens of Jordan.
40% are in the West Bank and Gaza, somewhere they consider to be Palestine and indeed engage in efforts to have it recognised.
The rest are in Lebanon and Syria of which 2/3 have left and become citizens of other countries.

UNRWA has registered millions of people as refugees over the decades who do not meet the basic criteria applied to EVERY other group of refugees in the world. It seeks not to settle refugees but in registering millions of refugees its desire is to keep the 1948 war going.
Had the rest of the world been recognised as refugees in the same way as UNRWA does for the Palestinians the (relative) peace that has marked much of the world since WWII would have been replaced by constant war.

This is the reason why UNRWA should be dismantled/ defunded.

@Alwayslookonthe
The spokesperson then acknowledged it was highly likely the 9 employees had participated in the October 7th attack.

They said no such thing.

This is what was actually said by UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq:
“In one case, no evidence was obtained by OIOS to support the allegations of the staff member’s involvement, while in nine other cases, the evidence obtained by OIOS was insufficient to support the staff members’ involvement,”*
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1152841

There isn’t even enough evidence to say the nine were involved, so it is actually only suspicion at this point as the investigations continue.

So I vehemently disagree with you misreporting what the UN spokesperson actually said “insufficient evidence they may have been involved” to the more serious “highly likely they participated.”

They have been fired as a precaution, just like UNRWA fired the 10 in January on the basis of IDF allegations alone that post firing were investigated and zero evidence found by the independent French investigation on behalf of the EU and zero evidence from the IDF for their allegations. So it is not true that UNRWA only fire employees if it is “highly likely”. They fire as a precaution.

It doesn’t matter if 19, 12 , 9 or 0 UNRWA employees participated in the massacre of October 7th UNRWA is the ideological backbone that gives birth decade after decade, generation after generation to the idea of return.
It does matter whether any did participate, as it is 9 are suspected of involvement, not participation. UNRWA isn’t an ideology it is an agency of the UN and the “idea of return” is codified in international law, the UN charter and UN resolutions which Israel is a signatory to but feels they are above obeying.

UNRWA has registered millions of people as refugees over the decades who do not meet the basic criteria..
They do meet the criteria as internally displaced refugees within a nation and in occupied territories. The ones that have fled to neighbouring countries also meet the criteria for international refugees. Much of the issues you have is because unlike other conflicts, the refugees have not been allowed to return since 1948 so we have generations of refugees. It is the longest running conflict on the planet rn.

Had the rest of the world been recognised as refugees in the same way as UNRWA does for the Palestinians the (relative) peace that has marked much of the world since WWII would have been replaced by constant war.

Sorry what? That’s not even remotely plausible.

@SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice You've read that wrong, which is not surprising because the highlighting in the report is slightly misleading so I've re-bolded it for accuracy. The whole excerpt says:

Investigators made findings in relation to 19 UNRWA staff alleged to have been involved in the attacks, UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told journalists in New York.
“In one case, no evidence was obtained by OIOS to support the allegations of the staff member’s involvement, while in nine other cases, the evidence obtained by OIOS was insufficient to support the staff members’ involvement,” he said.
Regarding these10 cases, he said that appropriate measures will be taken in due course, in conformity with UNRWA Regulations and Rules.
With respect to the remaining nine cases, the evidence obtained by OIOS indicated that the UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the 7 October attacks.

I'll leave it to you to make your own judgements about the semantic game playing in Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner-General's statement that "the evidence – if authenticated and corroborated – could indicate that the UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the attacks of 7 October."

Ty for that, I did make a genuine error.
However “may have been involved” is a long long way from “highly likely they participated”

May have been involved is usually used for may be associated with those who participated.

And we all know how guilt by association works.,

@SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice

At 29.35 journalist Benno asked;
“Sorry to understand, to go back to the word ‘may’, but does that mean you see that these 9 people likely or highly likely were part of the attacks?”

Farhan Haq deputy spokesperson for the UN Secretary General replied;
“I think that is a good way of describing it, yes.”

So I will amend my statement slightly that Farhan Haq acknowledged that the 9 employees highly likely were part of the attacks.

It does matter whether any did participate, as it is 9 are suspected of involvement, not participation. UNRWA isn’t an ideology it is an agency of the UN and the “idea of return” is codified in international law, the UN charter and UN resolutions which Israel is a signatory to but feels they are above obeying.

The Palestinians do NOT possess any ‘right to return’.

They do meet the criteria as internally displaced refugees within a nation and in occupied territories. The ones that have fled to neighbouring countries also meet the criteria for international refugees. Much of the issues you have is because unlike other conflicts, the refugees have not been allowed to return since 1948 so we have generations of refugees. It is the longest running conflict on the planet rn.

Internally displaced people are not refugees, they are internally displaced.

The vast majority of those registered with UNWRA have never fled their homes.
UNWRA has registered millions of people as refugees, over the decades, who do not meet the basic criteria applied to EVERY other group of refugees in the world.

Eligibility requirements to be recognised as a Palestinian refugee changed in 1965 to include third generation descendants. In 1982 eligibility changed again to include ALL descendants of Palestinian males. The Result?
The creation of a permanent and perpetually growing population of Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA refuses to divulge how many registered refugees meets its own original definition ' of having lived in Mandatory Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948'.
There are currently 5.9 million refugees. No one comes off the list.

UNWRA refuses to accept that people who are citizens of a country are not refugees. Jordan granted citizenship to the Palestinian refugees who fled there including (at the time) those in the West Bank, which Jordan occupied between 1949 and 1967. So more than 2.2 million Palestinian refugees are actually citizens of a sovereign state.

UNWRA ensures that the conflict with Israel will continue and remain intractable.
This is why UNWRA should be dismantled/defunded.

@Alwayslookonthe
You’re saying there’s no such thing as a Palestinian refugee and the Palestinians who were forced to give up their land should just suck it up to facilitate world peace because many groups were displaced in the aftermath of WW2.

Firstly, they were displaced due to the actions of the UN doing a deal with the British so the UN has a special responsibility to sort out the ensuing difficulties. Secondly the role of UNWRA is to provide assistance to the Palestinian refugees, not to co-operate with ethnic cleansing or forced relocation.

You could argue that Israelis don’t really need to live in Israel and they’d be far safer in Brooklyn and as a result the world would be more peaceful and stable and see how far you’d get. But it seems that it’s ok to say the Palestinians should be moved on permanently without their consent purely to accommodate the state of Israel which has forcibly annexed the land that had been allocated to the Palestinian state. 1948 is not that far back- my dad was a middlaged man of 40 in 1948 and I have a teenage son

"The Palestinians do NOT possess any ‘right to return’."

How fucking convenient.

The Palestinians do NOT possess any ‘right to return’

Only Israel’s government believes this. The Human Rights Watch has an infographic that shows this injustice.

There are currently 5.9 million refugees. No one comes off the list.

They do when they die.

Eligibility requirements to be recognised as a Palestinian refugee changed in 1965 to include third generation descendants. In 1982 eligibility changed again to include ALL descendants of Palestinian males.

Because this conflict has been going on since 1948 and Israel has repeatedly denied Palestinian refugees their right of return. If we only had right of return until the original refugees died, well isn’t that rewarding countries who just refuse refugees their right of return? Aren’t we just allowing a loophole, of oh well, everyone who was alive in 1948 is now dead so nanner nanner we win, ethnic cleansing is complete, all we had to do was kick them out and wait 75yrs…

UNWRA refuses to accept that people who are citizens of a country are not refugees

You don’t have to be stateless to be a refugee! Citizenship of a country doesn’t mean you can’t be a refugee.

UNWRA is set up to protect the human rights of Palestinians, not everyone registered with them has refugee status,
some are registered under different groups in order to receive their services.

Why Can’t UNRWA Resettle Palestine Refugees?
37866

Unlike UNHCR, UNRWA does not have a mandate to resettle Palestine refugees and has no authority to seek lasting durable solutions for refugees. UNRWA is mandated by the UN General Assembly to provide services to Palestine refugees in five fields of operations, pending a just and lasting solution to their plight. Palestine refugees within the Agency’s fields of operations are excluded from the mandate of UNHCR, which has a resettlement mandate. However, according to UNHCR, less than 1 per cent of refugees are resettled each year.
It is worth noting that the protracted situation in which Palestine refugees live is not unique. Resettlement requires the consent not only of refugees, but also of the receiving state. UNHCR estimates that 78 per cent of all refugees under its mandate – 16 million refugees - were in protracted refugee situations in 2019. According to UNHCR data, of the 20.7 million refugees under UNHCR protection in 2020, less than 2 per cent of refugees (251,000) were repatriated to their country of origin. Far fewer were resettled in a third country (34,400) or naturalized as citizens in their country of asylum (33,746). The vast majority remained refugees pending a solution to their plight.

Is The Transfer Of Refugee Status To Descendants Unique To UNRWA?
37866

No. Under international law and the principle of family unity, the children of refugees and their descendants are also considered refugees until a durable solution is found. As stated by the United Nations,this principle applies to all refugees and both UNRWA and UNHCR have recognized descendants as refugees on this basis.
In line with this, the UN General Assembly annual resolutions on UNRWA operations continue since the 1950s to require the Agency to deliver its services for the protection and assistance of Palestine refugees, including descendants.
Palestine refugees are not distinct from other refugees in protracted refugee situations such as those from Afghanistan or Somalia, where there are multiple generations of refugees, registered by UNHCR as refugees and supported as such. Protracted refugee situations are the result of the failure to find political solutions to their underlying political crises.
It is important to note that registration with UNRWA does not afford refugee status under the 1951 Geneva Convention, but provides services and assistance based on a definition that sets out eligibility for receipt of such services.

@PeasfullPerson

UNHCR does not explicitly mention descendants of refugees in its definition, but the UNHCR Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status says that if the head of a family meets its definition of a refugee, his or her dependents normally are normally granted refugee status as well for the sake of family unity, ie his or her children.

In contrast to UNRWA, the UNHCR handbook, however, also mentions that granting refugee status to a dependent who “is a national of the country of asylum or of another country… would not be called for.” To be clear no citizen refugees. No forth or fifth generation refugees who have never fled their homes and who are citizens of the country they were born in.

Also, UNHCR has very specific ways for refugees to exit their refugee status. Under UNRWA, it is death or being falsely registered/duplicated.
UNHCR tries to remove their refugee status, while by default UNRWA tries to maintain it.

Almost all of Jordan’s 2.2 million UNRWA-designated refugees would likely lose their status under UNHCR criteria, as would most of Syria’s 560,000 and just under half of Lebanon’s 521,000. All 2.2 million UNRWA-designated refugees in Gaza and the West Bank would lose that status were those areas to become parts of a sovereign Palestinian state.

Today, some 5.9 million Palestine refugees are eligible for UNRWA services.

It sounds like one of the key steps to removing a need for UNRWA would, therefore, be the international recognition and protection of a sovereign Palestinian state, free from occupation. I think a lot of people would far rather have that than perpetual refugee status.

@Kindatired

You’re saying there’s no such thing as a Palestinian refugee and the Palestinians who were forced to give up their land should just suck it up to facilitate world peace because many groups were displaced in the aftermath of WW2.

No, I am not, there indeed are Palestinian refugees, but these number in the tens of thousands not 5.9 million. Those that are still refugees are mainly from Lebanon, some are still in Syria. In Lebanon the Palestinian refugees have been treated the worst. Lebanon did not make the Palestinians citizens, they were not integrated into the economy. The Palestinian refugees and their descendants in Lebanon have been prohibited from employment in over twenty professions and their ability to enter and exit the country is highly limited. Around half live in refugee camps and many live in dire poverty.
They could be transferred to the care and protection of UNHCR. In doing so, they would become official refugees subject to the protection of UNHCR. In 2017 an official census in Lebanon found that the number of registered refugees living there was only one-third of the number in UNWRA’s records. Since the refugee population is much smaller than previously thought it should be easier to find individual solutions for them. UNHCR would advocate to end the discriminatory regime against them in Lebanon, while it would also seek solutions of resettlement in third countries and even attempt to naturalisation in Lebanon.

UNRWA was set up just before UNKRA the agency for Korean’s refugees.
UNKRA was set up to aid and work to absorb the 3.1 million refugees from North Korea into South Korea which was devastated, whole cities were rubble and the countries economy was paralysed.
UNKRA settled every refugee in South Korea within 10 years.
Imagine if the Koreans had sat seething on the 38th parallel for the last 71 years. It wouldn’t be the successful country it is today with one of the world’s strongest economies.

Firstly, they were displaced due to the actions of the UN doing a deal with the British so the UN has a special responsibility to sort out the ensuing difficulties. Secondly the role of UNWRA is to provide assistance to the Palestinian refugees, not to co-operate with ethnic cleansing or forced relocation.

No, they became refugees when they waged a completely unnecessary war with a view to kill or expel every single Jew from the Mandate of Palestine.
Not sure what deal you are talking about between the British and the UN? The UN are not responsible for the Palestinians becoming refugees, the GA offered a solution which was rejected by the Arabs. It is a common argument from the Palestinians that the UN was responsible for creating the refugees; it was not responsible. You see Hamas spouting this spurious argument; Moussa Abu Marzouk when asked by an interviewer why haven’t Hamas built bomb shelters for it’s population the Hamas leader’s reply was the population of Gaza are the UN’s responsibility.
Secondly, UNRWA was created which would operate for a limited time (much like UNKRA for the Koreans) to prepare for the eventual discontinuation of international aid for the refugees. The Arab countries had other ideas and some interesting amendments to this.
By forced relocation are you including the citizens of Jordan who were born there and have never had to flee their homes who are registered as refugees?

the Palestinians should be moved on permanently without their consent purely to accommodate the state of Israel which has forcibly annexed the land that had been allocated to the Palestinian state

Forcibly annexed the land? The Palestinians, along with 5 other Arab countries waged a completely unnecessary war which the Jews against all odds won.
No land was allocated to the Palestinian state. The GA in 1947 offered a solution to the problem a Jewish state and an Arab state, which was rejected by the Arabs at the time. The resolution 181 is not binding as it was rejected.

Your post is saying that it’s ok to hold on to land taken by conquest and, by inference , ok for Israel to thwart a two state solution. Why wouldn’t Palestinians gravitate toward Iran or Russia or anyone else who will support them in trying to get their land back if the only way is by conquest. Israeli policy for decades has been to do anything to avoid a political two state solution-the pullout from Gaza was not remotely self determination and the rise of its Hamas administration was Israeli orchestrated.

@Kindatired

Your post is saying that it’s ok to hold on to land taken by conquest and, by inference , ok for Israel to thwart a two state solution.
Israel is a sovereign recognised country.

Why wouldn’t Palestinians gravitate toward Iran or Russia or anyone else who will support them in trying to get their land back if the only way is by conquest.
You have to be a bit more specific with your incredibly vague posts. What land are you talking about? Gaza? The West Bank? Or Israel?

Israeli policy for decades has been to do anything to avoid a political two state solution
This is utterly untrue. Please read up on the peace negotiations from 2000 and 2008.

-the pullout from Gaza was not remotely self determination
Gaza did have self determination how else do you think Hamas the governing body were able to build a terror tunnel city?

.and the rise of its Hamas administration was Israeli orchestrated.
Please explain this conspiracy theory in detail. Looking forward.

'Your post is saying that it’s ok to hold on to land taken by conquest and, by inference , ok for Israel to thwart a two state solution.
Israel is a sovereign recognised country.'

Yes it is. The Occupied Territories are... Occupied. By Israel. It might be nice if the people there could have sovereignty too.

'Why wouldn’t Palestinians gravitate toward Iran or Russia or anyone else who will support them in trying to get their land back if the only way is by conquest.
You have to be a bit more specific with your incredibly vague posts. What land are you talking about? Gaza? The West Bank? Or Israel?'

Maybe having a sovereign Palestinian state, free from occupation, could be a way of making it possible for Palestinians to have homes and safety from persecution, alongside some sort of recompense for the suffering inflicted upon them by decades of occupation and oppression.

'Israeli policy for decades has been to do anything to avoid a political two state solution
This is utterly untrue. Please read up on the peace negotiations from 2000 and 2008.'

It kind of is true. Kicking the ball into the long grass isn't progress, it's just making something tomorrow's problem rather than resolving it today.

'-the pullout from Gaza was not remotely self determination
Gaza did have self determination how else do you think Hamas the governing body were able to build a terror tunnel city?'

Gaza is still recognised as having been under occupation even once the Israeli settlements there were removed. Having experience of Gaza, what they had there was a very long way from self-determination.

They don't have a 'terror tunnel city'. They have a tunnel network, plenty of bits of which were already there. Lots of urban areas do have tunnel networks, by the way, this isn't a thing that's unique to Gaza.

'and the rise of its Hamas administration was Israeli orchestrated.
Please explain this conspiracy theory in detail. Looking forward.'

https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

Not really a conspiracy theory.

That would be a durable solution wouldn’t it! And which state is most against this happening!!

‘Under international law and the principle of family unity, the children of refugees and their descendants are also considered refugees until a durable solution is found.’