The Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, appointed this Monday an independent group to review whether UNRWA, the United Nations aid agency for Palestine, is doing everything in its power to guarantee its neutrality and respond to the serious accusations about “their non-compliance”.
This expression is a seemingly allegorical way to indicate that twelve members of that agency have been accused of being Hamas infiltrators and collaborating in the attack perpetrated in Israeli territory on October 7, with more than 1,200 dead and hundreds kidnapped. of which more than a hundred remain under their captors.
Israel uncovered the case, to which Guterres gave credibility, and meant that the United States immediately paused its donations to UNRWA, a measure supported by twenty Western countries. Spain stood out and assured that it will continue with its contributions.
The United States, aware of the danger of this agency, the main humanitarian source in Gaza, becoming inoperative, has set conditions for lifting its veto. One of these is that there is a thorough internal investigation and another through an independent body at the helm.
And the latter is what the secretary general, together with the agency's commissioner, Philippe Lazzarini, communicated. Leading this review will be Catherine Colonna, former French Foreign Minister, who will work with three research organizations: Sweden's Raoul Wallenberg Institute, Norway's Michelsen Institute and the Danish Human Rights Institute.
Their work will begin on February 14 and they must deliver their initial results in a report to the secretary general at the end of March. The final report is due before the end of April and will be made public.
In the investigation, the priorities are to identify the mechanisms and procedures that the agency maintains to guarantee its neutrality and respond to allegations or information in which it is maintained that there were gaps. The group should also ascertain whether these mechanisms were implemented in practice and whether the effort put into their operation was correct and had the potential to be effective. Here they must weigh the particular operations and the political and security environment in which the agency operates.
Another issue is to review whether these mechanisms are appropriate and fit their objective, including the relationship between risk management and specific operations. In addition, independent researchers should make recommendations for the improvement of UNRWA and its strengthening. Here we consider changing these mechanisms and creating new ones that better fit the responsibility to be developed and prevent poisoning.
In his statement, Guterres stressed that these accusations have been made at a time when UNRWA, the main UN agency in the region, is doing its work in the most challenging circumstances to distribute the life-saving assistance that is most needed. of two million people in the Gaza Strip. This territory depends on this aid for its survival, “in the midst of the largest and most complex humanitarian crisis in the world.”
He clarified that this external investigation will be carried out in parallel with the investigations that are already underway by the UN internal oversight office (OIOS) regarding the involvement of the twelve employees. Of these, nine have been fired, two are missing and one died. According to Guterrres, the collaboration of the Israeli authorities will be key to achieving results, but Israel would actually want UNRWA to be abolished. He has always despised it and thought it was a nest of terrorists.
