Israeli intelligence report claims four UNRWA staff in Gaza involved in Hamas kidnappings
Sky News has seen Israeli intelligence documents that Israel claims is evidence that staff working for a UN agency were connected with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The report, which has been shared with foreign governments, alleges that six employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) infiltrated Israel. Four of them were allegedly involved in kidnapping Israelis, while another worker is said to have provided “logistics support”.
Further claims include accusations that “out of approx. 12,000 UNRWA employees in GS [Gaza Strip], about 10% are Hamas/PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] operatives and about 50% are first-degree relatives with a Hamas operative”.
Critics of Israel’s actions say the number of staff allegedly involved is a tiny percentage of the agency’s overall workforce, and the decision by governments to suspend funding in response to the claims is a cruel and disproportionate move.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said it was “outraged” at foreign governments for pausing donations.
It said in a statement: “We are shocked by the reckless decision to cut a lifeline for an entire population by some of the very countries that had called for aid in Gaza to be stepped up and for humanitarians to be protected while doing their job.”
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Palestinians gather at a UNRWA base in Rafah. File pic: AP
The Israeli intelligence report also claims UNRWA is forced “to act under the authorisation and supervision of Hamas” and “it appears that UNRWA is assisting Hamas with securing humanitarian aid that is transferred to GS”.
It adds: “Following Hamas’s request, during Swords of Iron [the Israeli name for its military action in Gaza], UNRWA transferred fuel to north GS.”
Israel has long claimed that Hamas fighters have used UNWRA facilities to hide and store weapons, including in schools and hospitals, and dug tunnels under the agency’s buildings, sometimes with its knowledge.
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‘Collective punishment’
UNRWA was established in 1949 to provide assistance and protection for Palestinian refugees. It is funded almost entirely by voluntary donations.
In practice, the agency runs schools, health services and refugee camps – but not just in Gaza. It also operates in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, as well as parts of Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
It provides education to more than 544,000 children across 706 schools, hundreds of millions of dollars in loans for small businesses and job creation, and healthcare support for more than seven million visits by patients every year.
They will all be affected by the suspension of funding, which critics have described as a form of “collective punishment”.
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The Israeli intelligence documents make several claims that Sky News has not seen proof of and many of the claims, even if true, do not directly implicate UNRWA.
Following the allegations, a number of countries, including the US, UK, Germany, Japan, and Australia, suspended funding to the agency pending further investigation.
‘Death sentence for millions’
Responding to the developments, UNRWA’s commissioner general Phillippe Lazzarini said last week he had immediately terminated the contracts of the accused staff and ordered an investigation.
He said: “Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.
“UNRWA reiterates its condemnation in the strongest possible terms of the abhorrent attacks of 7 October and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all Israeli hostages and their safe return to their families.”
Philippe Lazzarini speaking to Sky News last year
UNRWA also said it shares the list of all its staff with host countries every year, including Israel.
“The agency never received any concerns on specific staff members,” it added.
The move to cut funding has been severely criticised by other aid organisations. Action Aid said it “spells a death sentence for millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the surrounding regions.”
UNRWA has paid a heavy price during the war – 152 of its staff have been killed in Gaza and 145 of its facilities have been damaged.
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
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Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
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Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
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