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Review of UNRWA finds Israel raised no concerns about agency staff for past 13 years

Israel claims that at least 12 UNWRA staff participated in the Oct. 7 attacks and that they used UN vehicles (AFP)
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Updated 22 April 2024
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Review of UNRWA finds Israel raised no concerns about agency staff for past 13 years

  • The independent review, ordered by the UN secretary-general, adds that Israel has provided no evidence to back up allegations that 12 UNRWA workers took part in Oct. 7 attacks
  • The findings of the investigation, led by French former foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, are contained in a wide-ranging 48-page report published on Monday
Updated 22 April 2024
Ephrem Kossaify

NEW YORK CITY: Israeli authorities have yet to provide any evidence to back up their allegations that a dozen people who worked for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees were affiliated with terrorist groups, according to an independent review headed by the French former foreign minister, Catherine Colonna.

Her nine-week investigation began after Israel alleged in January that 12 UNRWA workers took part in the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel. The investigators also found that Israel had not previously expressed concerns about any individuals named on the agency staffing lists it had been receiving since 2011.

The wide-ranging 48-page report, published on Monday and seen by Arab News, states: “In the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, UNRWA remains pivotal in providing life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank.

“As such, UNRWA is irreplaceable and indispensable to Palestinians’ human and economic development. In addition, many view UNRWA as a humanitarian lifeline.”

The agency, which provides aid and services to Palestinian refugees in Gaza and throughout the region, was thrown into crisis when the Israeli allegations emerged. In response, the US, the biggest single funder of UNRWA, and several other major donors put their funding for the organization on hold. In all, 16 UN member states suspended or paused donations, while others imposed conditions, placing the future of the agency in doubt.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in consultation with UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini, ordered an independent review of the claims to evaluate the agency’s adherence to the principle of neutrality, and its response to allegations of breaches of neutrality, particularly within the challenging context of the situation in Gaza.

Guterres also initiated a separate investigation by the UN’s own Office of Internal Oversight Services to determine the accuracy of the allegations against UNRWA staff. The agency also cut its ties with the workers named by Israel.

According to the Colonna report, the amount of money withheld during the pauses in funding amounted to about $450 million. Following the actions taken by the UN in response to the Israeli allegations, several member states reinstated their funding. However, they called for further details about the events in question, and the strengthening of UNRWA mechanisms and procedures to ensure the neutrality of its workers, including its vetting and oversight of staff.

The task of the review group was to “assess whether UNRWA is doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality and respond to allegations of serious neutrality breaches when they are made.”

Colonna told Arab News: “We received excellent cooperation from all sides,” including the Israeli government.

Her report reiterates that “UNRWA and its staff and personnel have a fundamental obligation to maintain neutrality to ensure the integrity of the agency’s mission and the effectiveness of its operations.

“Neutrality is a UN commitment, as one of the four humanitarian principles formally adopted by the General Assembly and upheld by other UN agencies while operating in humanitarian settings. It means

that humanitarian actors must not take sides in hostilities or engage in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature.”

The report includes more than 50 recommendations for enhancing efforts to ensure the neutrality of more than 32,000 UNRWA workers. They include improvements to internal oversight services, increased in-person training, and additional support from donor nations.

However, the review also acknowledges that existing UNRWA safeguards are already more stringent than those in place at similar organizations.

“UNRWA’s neutrality challenges differ from those of other international organizations due to the magnitude of its operations, with most personnel being locally recruited and recipients of UNRWA services,” the review notes.

Guterres said he has accepted the findings of Colonna’s report and agreed with Lazzarini that UNRWA “will establish an action plan to implement the recommendations contained in the final report.”

The spokesperson for the secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, said that Guterres “counts on the cooperation of the donor community, the host countries and the staff to fully cooperate in the implementation of the recommendations.

“Moving forward, the secretary-general appeals to all stakeholders to actively support UNRWA, as it is a lifeline for Palestine refugees in the region.”

Colonna said in New York on Monday that “the international community has a responsibility in helping and supporting UNRWA in addressing neutrality issues.”

During its nine-week investigation, her group thoroughly examined the agency’s existing mechanisms and protocols for maintaining neutrality and addressing potential violations. Members of the group visited the UNRWA headquarters and its offices in Amman, Jerusalem and the West Bank, and talked to various stakeholders, including agency officials, donor states, host countries, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, other UN agencies, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations.

In all, the review group met or interviewed more than 200 people, including several members of UNRWA staff in Gaza. Direct contact was made with officials from 47 countries and organizations.

The review revealed that UNRWA has in place a significant number of mechanisms and procedures to ensure compliance with humanitarian principles, with an emphasis on neutrality, and that it had adopted a more developed approach to the issue of neutrality than many other similar UN agencies or nongovernmental organizations.

Despite these significant efforts, issues relating to the neutrality of the agency and its staff have persisted. There have been several allegations of breaches of neutrality rules and disciplinary measures were taken in response, the report noted, but none of the prior allegations were as serious as the ones made by Israeli authorities in January this year.

A common criticism leveled by Israel against UNRWA is the alleged use in schools throughout the region of Palestinian Authority textbooks that contain antisemitic material. However, international studies have found minimal evidence to substantiate this.

“Three international assessments of PA textbooks in recent years have provided a nuanced picture,” the Colonna report said. “Two identified presence of bias and antagonistic content but did not provide evidence of antisemitic content.

“The third assessment, by the Georg Eckert Institute (in Germany), studied 156 PA textbooks and identified two examples that it found to display antisemitic motifs but noted that one of them had already been removed. The other has been altered.”

A spokesperson for the Israeli Foreign Ministry on Monday said Colonna’s report was “insufficient,” ignores the severity of the problem, and offers cosmetic solutions that do not deal with the enormous scope of the infiltration of UNRWA by Hamas.

Topics: War on Gaza UNRWA Antonio Guterres United Nations (UN) Catherine Colonna

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Battle for Khartoum wrecks key Sudan oil refinery

Updated 56 min 35 sec ago
AFP
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Battle for Khartoum wrecks key Sudan oil refinery

  • Al-Jaili refinery, some 70 kilometers north of Khartoum, was captured by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces
  • “Some units have been completely destroyed and are now out of service,” the refinery’s deputy director, Sirajuddin Muhammad, told AFP
Updated 56 min 35 sec ago
AFP

AL-JAILI, Sudan: The once-pristine white oil tanks of Sudan’s largest refinery have been blackened by nearly two years of devastating war, leaving the country heavily dependent on fuel imports it can ill afford.
The Chinese-built Al-Jaili refinery, some 70 kilometers (45 miles) north of Khartoum, was captured by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), just days after fighting with the regular army erupted in April 2023.
For months, artillery exchanges battered the facility, forcing a complete shutdown in July 2023.
The regular army finally recaptured the refinery in January as part of a wider offensive to retake greater Khartoum but operations remain at a standstill, with vast sections of the plant lying in ruins.
Towering storage tanks, which once gleamed under the sun, are now cloaked in soot and the ground is littered with twisted pipes and pools of leaked oil.
“Some units have been completely destroyed and are now out of service,” the refinery’s deputy director, Sirajuddin Muhammad, told AFP. “Other sections need to be entirely replaced.”
Before the war, Al-Jaili processed up to 100,000 barrels per day of crude, meeting nearly half of Sudan’s fuel needs.
“The refinery was crucial for Sudan, covering 50 percent of the country’s petrol needs, 40 percent of its diesel and 50 percent of its cooking gas,” economist Khalid el-Tigani told AFP.
“With its closure, Sudan has been forced to rely on imports to fill the gap, with fuel now being brought in by the private sector using foreign currency.”
And hard currency is in desperately short supply in Sudan after the deepening conflict between Sudan’s rival generals uprooted more than 12 million people, devastating the nation’s economy.
The Sudanese pound now trades at around 2,400 to the dollar, compared to 600 before the war, leaving imported goods beyond the means of most people.
During the army’s recapture of the refinery in January, what remained of it was gutted by a massive fire.
The RSF blamed the blaze on “barrel bombs” dropped by the air force.
The regular army accused the RSF of deliberately torching it in a “desperate attempt to destroy the country’s infrastructure.”
An AFP team visited the refinery under military escort on Tuesday. Burnt out vehicles lined the roadside as the convoy passed through abandoned neighborhoods.
As the refinery grew nearer, the blackened skeletons of storage tanks loomed in the distance and the acrid smell of burnt oil grew stronger.
The control rooms, where engineers once monitored operations, had been completely gutted.
Pools of water left over from the firefighting effort in January had yet to drain away.
Built in two phases, in 2000 and 2006, the plant cost $2.7 billion to build, with China taking the lead role.
Beijing still retains a 10 percent stake, while the Sudanese state controls the remaining 90 percent.
Refinery officials estimate it will cost at least $1.3 billion to get the refinery working again.
“Some parts must be manufactured in their country of origin, which determines the timeline of repairs,” Muhammad said.
An engineer at the refinery, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said that even if Sudan secured the necessary financing, “it would still take at least three years to get this place running again.”
The discovery of large domestic oil reserves in the 1970s and 1980s transformed the Sudanese economy.
But when South Sudan seceded in 2011, the fledgling nation took with it about three-quarters of the formerly united country’s oil output.
South Sudan remains dependent on Sudanese pipelines to export its oil, paying transit fees to the rump country that are one of its few remaining sources of hard currency.
But the war has put that arrangement at risk.
In February last year, the pipeline used to export South Sudanese oil through Port Sudan on the country’s Red Sea coast was knocked out by fighting between the army and the RSF.
Exports were halted for nearly a year, resuming only in January.

Topics: Sudan Unrest Khartoum Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Al-Jaili refinery

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German foreign minister on Syria visit reopens Damascus embassy

Updated 20 March 2025
AFP
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German foreign minister on Syria visit reopens Damascus embassy

  • Baerbock reopened the mission on her second visit there since the fall of president Bashar Assad over three months ago
  • “The horrific outbreaks of violence two weeks ago have caused a massive loss of trust,” said Baerbock
Updated 20 March 2025
AFP

DAMASCUS: Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock officially reopened her country’s embassy in war-ravaged Syrian Arab Republic during a one-day visit to Damascus on Thursday.
Baerbock reopened the mission, which closed in 2012 amid the Syrian civil war, on her second visit there since the fall of president Bashar Assad over three months ago.
Her trip also came weeks after sectarian massacres claimed more than 1,500 lives on Syria’s Mediterranean coast — the heartland of Assad’s Alawite minority.
“The horrific outbreaks of violence two weeks ago have caused a massive loss of trust,” said Baerbock. “The targeted killing of civilians is a terrible crime.”
She called on the transitional government of interim president Ahmed Al-Sharaa to “control the actions of the groups within its own ranks and hold those responsible accountable.”
But she stressed that “we want to support the Syrians together with our European partners and the United Nations” as they rebuild their country.
Germany on Monday announced 300 million euros ($325 million) for reconstruction aid in Syria, as part of a donor conference that gathered total pledges of 5.8 billion euros.
A German foreign ministry source said Berlin had officially reopened its embassy in Syria, with an initially small diplomatic team working in Damascus.
Consular affairs and visas would continue to be handled from the Lebanese capital Beirut for practical reasons and due to the security situation in Syria.
The ministry source said that “Germany has a paramount interest in a stable Syria. We can better contribute to the difficult task of stabilization on the ground.
“We can build important diplomatic contacts and thus, among other things, push for an inclusive political transition process that takes into account the interests of all population groups.”
The source added that “with our diplomats on the ground, we can now also once again engage in important work with civil society. And we can respond directly and immediately to serious negative developments.”
Baerbock in her statement warned Syria’s interim authorities that a “new start” with Europe was conditional on it delivering security to all Syrians, regardless of faith, gender or ethnicity.
She said many Syrians “are scared that life in the future Syria will not be safe for all Syrians.”
In the days after March 6, Syria’s coast was gripped by the worst wave of violence since Assad’s overthrow.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,500 civilians, most of them Alawites, the minority to which Assad belongs.
Since Assad’s overthrow, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on military sites in Syria, arguing the weapons must not fall into the hands of the new authorities whom it considers jihadists, and deployed troops to a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights.
Baerbock said “the influence of foreign actors has brought nothing but chaos to Syria in the past.”
“Even today, attacks on Syrian territory threaten the country’s stability. All sides are called upon to exercise maximum military restraint and not to torpedo the intra-Syrian unification process.”

Topics: Fall of Assad German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock Syrian Arab Republic

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Turkiye detains 37 over ‘provocative’ social media posts following arrest of Istanbul mayor

Updated 56 min 55 sec ago
AP
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Turkiye detains 37 over ‘provocative’ social media posts following arrest of Istanbul mayor

  • Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said authorities identified 261 social media accounts that shared provocative posts inciting public hatred or crime
  • Imamoglu’s arrest came just days before he was expected to be nominated as the opposition Republican People’s Party’s presidential candidate
Updated 56 min 55 sec ago
AP

ISTANBUL: Turkish authorities detained 37 people for sharing “provocative” content on social media, the interior minister said Thursday, pressing ahead with a crackdown on dissenting voices that escalated with the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul, a potential challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested after a dawn raid on his residence on Wednesday as part of investigations into alleged corruption and terror links. Several other prominent figures, including two district mayors, were also detained.
The detention of a popular opposition leader and key Erdogan rival deepened concerns over democracy and sparked protests in Istanbul and elsewhere, despite a four-day ban on demonstrations in the city and road closures. On Thursday, hundreds of university students held a peaceful march in Istanbul to protest the detentions.
It also caused a shockwave in the financial market, triggering temporary halts in trading to prevent panic selling.
Critics see the crackdown as an effort by Erdogan to extend his more then two-decade rule following significant losses by the ruling party in local elections last year. Government officials reject claims that legal actions against opposition figures are politically motivated and insist that the courts operate independently.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said authorities identified 261 social media accounts that shared provocative posts inciting public hatred or crime, including 62 that are run by people based abroad. At least 37 of the suspected owners were detained and efforts to detain other suspects were continuing, he wrote on the X social media platform.
Imamoglu’s arrest came just days before he was expected to be nominated as the opposition Republican People’s Party’s presidential candidate in a primary scheduled for Sunday. The party’s leader has said the primary will go ahead as planned.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed concern over the mayor’s detention, saying it was a “very, very bad sign” for Turkiye’s relations with the European Union.
Scholz said it was “depressing for democracy in Turkiye, but certainly also depressing for the relationship between Europe and Turkiye.”
“We can only call for this to end immediately and for opposition and government to stand in competition with each other, and not the opposition being brought to court,” he said.
Prosecutors accused Imamoglu of exploiting his position for financial gain, including the improper allocation of government contracts.
In a separate investigation, prosecutors also accuse Imamoglu of aiding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, by allegedly forming an alliance with Kurdish groups for the Istanbul municipal elections. The PKK, behind a decades-long insurgency in Turkiye, is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, Washington and other allies.
It was not clear when authorities would begin questioning the mayor, who can be detained without charges for up to four days. Analysts say Imamoglu could be removed from office and replaced by a “trustee mayor” if he is formally charged with links to the PKK.
Before his detention, Imamoglu already faced multiple criminal cases that could result in prison sentences and a political ban. He is also appealing a 2022 conviction for insulting members of Turkiye’s Supreme Electoral Council, a case that could result in a political ban.
This week, a university nullified his diploma, citing alleged irregularities in his 1990 transfer from a private university in northern Cyprus to its business faculty, a decision Imamoglu said he would challenge. The decision effectively bars him from running for president, since the position requires candidates to be university graduates.
Imamoglu was elected mayor of Turkiye’s largest city in March 2019, a historic blow to Erdogan and the president’s Justice and Development Party, which had controlled Istanbul for a quarter-century. Erdogan’s party pushed to void the municipal election results in the city of 16 million, alleging irregularities.
The challenge resulted in a repeat of the election a few months later, which Imamoglu also won. The mayor retained his seat following local elections last year, during which his party made significant gains against Erdogan’s governing party.

Topics: Turkiye President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

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UK bomb disposal expert injured in Gaza blast

Updated 20 March 2025
Arab News
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UK bomb disposal expert injured in Gaza blast

  • Ordnance ‘fired at or dropped on’ UN facility, killing 1, injuring 4 others
  • Mines Advisory Group: ‘Attacks against humanitarian premises are a breach of international law’
Updated 20 March 2025
Arab News

LONDON: A bomb disposal expert from the UK has been injured in an explosion in Gaza.

The unnamed 51-year-old was wounded at a UN facility in Deir Al-Balah on Wednesday. Four others were injured and a UN worker was killed in the incident.

The Briton, who was working in Gaza as an explosive ordnance disposal expert for the Mines Advisory Group, was treated locally before being moved to a hospital in Israel.

Darren Cormack, the charity’s CEO, told the BBC that the man was conducting an explosive hazards assessment at a UN Office for Project Services facility when the explosion occurred.

“The UN has confirmed that today’s incident did not occur in the course of normal EOD operations and resulted from ordnance being fired at or dropped on the building in which the team was working,” Cormack said.

“It is shocking that a humanitarian facility should be subject to attacks of this nature and that humanitarian workers are being killed and injured in the line of duty.”

Cormack added: “Attacks against humanitarian premises are a breach of international law.”

Health authorities in Gaza said the explosion was a result of Israeli military activity.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein posted on X: “The circumstances of the incident are being investigated. We emphasize that the initial examination found no connection to IDF (Israel Defense Forces) activity whatsoever.”

Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN secretary-general, told the BBC: “We are making it clear that all military operations have to be conducted in a way that ensures that all civilians are respected and protected.”

UNOPS chief Jorge Moreira da Silva said the explosion was “not an accident” and described the situation in Gaza as “unconscionable.”

Topics: War on Gaza

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Putin offers cooperation to Syrian leader, backs efforts to stabilize country

Updated 20 March 2025
Reuters
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Putin offers cooperation to Syrian leader, backs efforts to stabilize country

  • Russia, which has two strategically important military bases in Syria, was one of the main supporters of former President Bashar Assad
Updated 20 March 2025
Reuters

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a message to Syria’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa supporting efforts to stabilize the situation in the country and saying Russia is ready to engage in “practical cooperation,” Russian state news agency TASS reported on Thursday.
Putin confirmed “Russia’s continuing readiness to develop practical cooperation with the Syrian leadership on the whole range of issues on the bilateral agenda in order to strengthen traditionally friendly Russian-Syrian relations,” it quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
Syria has been rocked by a wave of sectarian killings. The Kremlin
said
earlier this month it wanted to see a united and “friendly” Syria because instability there could affect the whole of the Middle East.
Russia, which has two strategically important military bases in Syria, was one of the main supporters of former President Bashar Assad, who fled to Russia after he was toppled in December.

Topics: Russia Syria Fall of Assad

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