MESSAGE
| DATE | 2024-01-29 |
| FROM | mayer ilovitz
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] Israel
|
thank you. and again. have a safe trip. and may all of yours be safe.
On 1/29/2024 1:25 PM, Ruben Safir wrote:
>> Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
> Intelligence Reveals Details of U.N. Agency Staff’s Links to Oct. 7 Attack
> Carrie Keller-Lynn and David Luhnow
> 8–10 minutes
>
> TEL AVIV—At least 12 employees of the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency
> had connections to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and around 10% of all
> of its Gaza staff have ties to Islamist militant groups, according to
> intelligence reports reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
>
> Six United Nations Relief and Works Agency workers were part of the wave
> of Palestinian militants who killed 1,200 people in the deadliest
> assault on Jews since the Holocaust, according to the intelligence
> dossier. Two helped kidnap Israelis. Two others were tracked to sites
> where scores of Israeli civilians were shot and killed. Others
> coordinated logistics for the assault, including procuring weapons.
>
> Of the 12 Unrwa employees with links to the attacks, seven were primary
> or secondary school teachers, including two math teachers, two Arabic
> language teachers and one primary school teacher.
>
> The information in the intelligence reports—based on what an official
> described as very sensitive signals intelligence as well as cellphone
> tracking data, interrogations of captured Hamas fighters and documents
> recovered from dead militants, among other things—were part of a
> briefing given by Israel to U.S. officials that led Washington and
> others to suspend aid to Unrwa.
>
> Intelligence estimates shared with the U.S. conclude that around 1,200
> of Unrwa’s roughly 12,000 employees in Gaza have links to Hamas or
> Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and about half have close relatives who
> belong to the Islamist militant groups. Both groups have been designated
> as terrorist organizations by the U.S. and others. Hamas has run Gaza
> since a 2007 coup.
>
> “Unrwa’s problem is not just ‘a few bad apples’ involved in the October
> 7 massacre,” said a senior Israeli government official. “The institution
> as a whole is a haven for Hamas’ radical ideology.”
>
> An Unrwa spokesperson on Monday declined to comment, saying an internal
> U.N. investigation into the agency was under way.
>
> Two officials familiar with the intelligence said the Unrwa employees
> considered to have ties with militant groups were deemed to be
> “operatives,” indicating they took active part in the organization’s
> military or political framework. The report said 23% of Unrwa’s male
> employees had ties to Hamas, a higher percentage than the average of 15%
> for adult males in Gaza, indicating a higher politicization of the
> agency than the population at large.
>
> Nearly half of all Unrwa employees—an estimated 49%—also had close
> relatives who also had official ties to the militant groups, especially
> Hamas, the intelligence reports said.
>
> In the aftermath of Oct. 7, as Israel has waged war against Hamas in
> Gaza, Unrwa has emerged as one of the loudest voices decrying the impact
> of the fierce fighting on Palestinians in the enclave, where authorities
> say more than 26,000 people have been killed. Unrwa says at least 152 of
> its own staff have been killed in the conflict.
>
> The agency is also the main pillar of operations to move food aid,
> medicine and other humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
>
> The vast majority of Unrwa’s 30,000 staff across the Middle East are
> Palestinian, and Israel and some in the U.S. have long accused it of
> nurturing anti-Israeli sentiment in crowded refugee camps that have been
> important recruiting grounds for militant groups, including Hamas.
>
> The Trump administration suspended funding for Unrwa in 2018, saying the
> agency’s mission was fundamentally misguided. The Biden administration
> renewed funding in 2021.
>
> The Oct. 7 intelligence reports seen by the Journal identified an Unrwa
> Arabic teacher who the reports said was also a Hamas militant commander
> and took part in a terrorist attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, where 97 people
> were killed and about 26 people were kidnapped and taken as hostages to
> Gaza.
>
> Another Unrwa employee, described in the dossier as an Unrwa social
> worker, played a role in absconding with the body of a dead Israeli
> soldier, which was taken to Gaza, the reports said. He also coordinated
> trucks and munitions distributions for Hamas before being killed.
>
> A person familiar with the dossier said that after U.S. officials were
> briefed on the intelligence material, they alerted Unrwa, which put out
> a statement announcing the allegation that some of its employees were
> linked to the attacks and saying it had fired the employees involved. It
> provided no details, and didn’t say how many employees were involved.
>
> On Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said he was
> personally horrified by the allegations.
>
> Unrwa commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini criticized Western nations
> for pausing aid at a time when Gaza is facing a humanitarian crisis as
> the war between Hamas and Israel rages. Guterres also implored nations
> to not suspend humanitarian aid.
>
> It is “immensely irresponsible to sanction an agency and an entire
> community it serves because of allegations of criminal acts against some
> individuals,” Lazzarini said.
>
> Unrwa looks after more than 5 million Palestinians in densely-packed
> refugee neighborhoods across the Middle East, including the West Bank,
> Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. But its biggest operations are in Gaza, where
> it looks after an estimated 80% of the local population and runs
> hundreds of schools and scores of clinics.
>
> Israel says it has documented deepening ties between Unrwa and Hamas
> since the militant group cemented its hold on Gaza in 2007. Unrwa has
> admitted to finding Hamas weapons stored in schools and Israel has
> repeatedly said Hamas tunnels run under and through Unrwa buildings as
> well as other civilian facilities. The former head of Unrwa’s union in
> Gaza was fired in 2017 after Israel found out he had been elected to
> Hamas’ top political leadership.
>
> The dossier is the most detailed look yet at the widespread links
> between the Unrwa employees and militants. It offers telling details
> regarding the events of Oct. 7.
>
> A math teacher belonging to Hamas was close enough to a female hostage
> in Gaza that he took a picture of her. Another teacher was carrying an
> antitank missile the night before the invasion.
>
> One Unrwa employee set up an operations room for Palestinian Islamic
> Jihad on Oct. 8, the day after the attack. Three other employees,
> including another Arabic teacher at an Unrwa school, received a text
> from Hamas to arm themselves at a staging area close to the border the
> night before the attack. It was unclear whether they went.
>
> A different elementary school teacher did cross into Israel and went to
> Reim, a district where a kibbutz, an army base and a music festival were
> attacked.
>
> One of the intelligence reports seen by the Journal said a 13th Unrwa
> employee, who didn’t have a discernible affiliation with a terror group,
> also entered Israel. Hundreds of Gazan civilians flooded across the
> border as part of the Hamas-led attack, Israel says.
>
> Teachers make up nearly three-quarters of Unrwa’s Gaza-based local
> staff. Unrwa schools, which use textbooks approved by the Palestinian
> Authority, have come under fire for using materials that allegedly
> glorify terrorists and promote hatred of Israel. Unrwa says it has taken
> steps to address problematic content, but a 2019 U.S. Government
> Accountability Office report said that measures haven’t always been
> implemented.
>
> Since Oct. 7, Hamas has stolen more than $1 million worth of Unrwa
> supplies, including fuel and trucks, according to the intelligence
> report. The intelligence assessment alleges that Hamas operatives are so
> deeply enmeshed within the Unrwa aid-delivery enterprise as to
> coordinate transfers for the organization.
>
> Write to David Luhnow at david.luhnow-at-wsj.com
>
> Corrections & Amplifications
> The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as Unrwa, was
> incorrectly referred to as Unwra in one instance in an earlier version
> of this article. (Corrected on Jan. 29)
>
>
_______________________________________________
Hangout mailing list
Hangout-at-nylxs.com
http://lists.mrbrklyn.com/mailman/listinfo/hangout
|
|
