US says claims UN aid staff took part in Hamas attack ‘credible’

A new US intelligence assessment found it is likely some employees of a UN agency that distributes aid to Palestinians took part in Hamas’s October 7 assault on Israel, but says it can’t verify Israeli allegations that a larger number of UN workers have links to militant groups.

Washington and other Western capitals last month suspended funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which supplies aid to Palestinians, after Israel shared findings that at least 12 UNRWA employees were connected to the series of Hamas killings and kidnappings during an attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.

Israeli intelligence agencies said they concluded that 10 per cent of all UNRWA workers had some kind of affiliation, usually political, with Hamas. A far smaller number had ties to the militant wings of Hamas and another group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. UNRWA employs around 12,000 people in Gaza.

Those allegations and the consequent drop in donations have thrown the agency’s future in doubt at a time when it is playing the leading role in helping distribute food and medicine in Gaza amid growing hunger, disease and social disorder in the war-torn enclave. The war has killed more than 29,000 people, the majority of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials. The numbers don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.

The new intelligence assessment, as described by US officials, doesn’t dispute Israel’s allegations of links between some staff at UNRWA and militant groups, but it provides a more measured appraisal of Israel’s assertions than public statements by US and Israeli officials.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month called Israel’s assertions “highly, highly credible” but also said the agency played an essential role in providing relief to people in Gaza. The White House also said it had concerns about some UNRWA employees.

UNRWA fired the employees allegedly involved in the October 7 attack, the deadliest in Israeli history, and the UN has launched its own investigation into the claims. UNRWA has also questioned how Israel came up with its figures of broader links to militant groups among its staff.

In the new report, which was completed last week, the US’s National Intelligence Council, a group of veteran intelligence analysts, said it assessed with “low confidence” that a handful of UNRWA staffers participated in the October 7 attack, those familiar with the findings said.

A low-confidence assessment indicates that the US intelligence community believes the claims are plausible but cannot make a stronger assertion because it doesn’t have its own independent confirmation.

The US concluded the claims are “credible,” a US official said.

US officials said that American spy agencies haven’t traditionally focused on gathering intelligence on Gaza, and that Israel hadn’t shared the raw intelligence behind its assessments with the US, limiting their ability to reach clearer conclusions.

The council’s findings, in a roughly four-page report, were circulated within the US government last week, those familiar with the document said.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence – which includes the National Intelligence Council – the State Department and the White House declined to comment.

An Israeli official said Israel wasn’t familiar with the US assessment and said: “We share intimate intelligence with our US partners in all areas.” The official, who was briefed on the matter, was unaware of American requests for additional intelligence.

Tamara Alrifai, UNRWA’s director of external relations and communications, said that the organisation takes steps to aggressively protect its neutrality.

“We went the extra mile and fired people on the basis of how serious the allegations are,” she said.

Days after the initial charges, Israeli officials distributed to news organisations a six-page dossier, a summary of a larger report, that included details of the allegations.

Israeli officials say they based the claim on lists of UNRWA employees found in Gaza during the current military campaign that were then cross-checked with other sources of intelligence. Israel has long complained that UNRWA gave incomplete lists of its employees in Gaza that lacked key information, like additional surnames and dates of birth. UNRWA says it regularly gave updated lists to Israel’s government.

The report also notes what it says is Israel’s longstanding dislike of the UN agency, two of those familiar with the document said.

“There is a specific section that mentions how Israeli bias serves to mischaracterise much of their assessments on UNRWA and says this has resulted in distortions,” one person familiar with the report said.

The US assessment also says that the reality of Hamas’ control in Gaza means that the UN agency has to interact with the group to deliver humanitarian relief, but that that doesn’t mean that the agency is collaborating with the militant group, the person said.

Since the allegations first surfaced, Israel has doubled down on its allegations that the agency has become widely infiltrated by Hamas. Israel’s military said it found a key Hamas military tunnel complex under the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza. UNRWA says that it sweeps its facilities to ensure that there are no military personnel or equipment in them, but cannot account for tunnels underground.

“UNRWA has lost legitimacy and can no longer function as a UN body. I have instructed the defence establishment to begin transferring responsibilities related to the delivery of aid, to additional organisations,” Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said on Friday.

On Friday, Mr Gallant made new allegations against UNRWA and publicly identified the 12 employees that Israel had previously said were connected to the attack.

“In addition to these 12 workers, we have significant indications based on intelligence, that over 30 UNRWA workers participated in the massacre, facilitated the taking of hostages, looted and stole from Israeli communities and more,” he said.

He also raised the estimate of UNRWA staffers with links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad to 1468 – or 12 per cent of staff. Of that figure, however, he said far fewer were tied to the militant wing of Hamas – some 185 militant operatives in UNRWA, and a further 51 for PIJ.

UNRWA, which provides schooling, healthcare and other social services for more than five million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, has by far the biggest staff of any international agency in Gaza, making it a key player in attempts to address the humanitarian crisis. UNRWA officials say that without further funding, the agency will start to run out of money in April.