UNRWA claims employees were coerced into falsely stating that agency is linked to Hamas; Proof presented by Israel shows otherwise.
By World Israel News Staff
Employee of the UNRWA agency, which Israel revealed is linked to Hamas, claim that they were forced into confirming connections between the aid organization and the terror group while being detained by Israeli authorities.
In January, the Israeli authorities made the bombshell announcement that dozens of UNRWA employees had participated in the October 7th atrocities.
Following the revelations, numerous countries abruptly cut off funding to UNRWA. But in recent weeks, the agency has been attempting to restore its funding, claiming that only a small fraction of those employed by UNRWA participated in the October 7th attacks.
Senior UNRWA officials told the Reuters news agency that many of their employees were arrested by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip in the weeks after the massacres.
During the time they were detained, they claim, they were forced by security forces to falsely admit to links between Hamas and the agency.
“Agency staff members have been subject to threats and coercion by the Israeli authorities while in detention, and pressured to make false statements against the Agency, including that the Agency has affiliations with Hamas and that UNRWA staff members took part in the 7 October 2023 atrocities,” according to a Reuters report describing UNRWA’s missives on the matter.
Notably, UNRWA refused to allow Reuters to review a transcript of the interviews and their internal report.
Security footage from a kibbutz in southern Israel showed an UNRWA social worker using an official UN vehicle to kidnap the dead body of an Israeli murdered by Hamas on October 7th.
Other proof of UNRWA workers’ involvement in October 7th presented by Israel include a recorded phone conversation, during which an employee brags that he’s kidnapped a Jewish woman. He refers to her as a sabaya, an Islamic term for a sex slave captured in battle.