UNRWA chief calls for investigation into deaths of staff members

Unrwa chief calls for enquiry into deaths of its members Keystone-SDA

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, called on Tuesday for an investigation into the deaths of more than 390 agency staff during the war in Gaza.

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“I believe we need a panel (…) a high-level panel of experts to investigate the killing of our staff,” Philippe Lazzarini told the press in Geneva on the final day of his tenure as head of the agency.

According to him, “more than 390” UNRWA staff members have been killed since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023. “Many others have suffered disabling injuries or have been arbitrarily detained and tortured,” he added.

Investigations are also needed into the deaths of “other UN staff members, as complaints have also been lodged in this regard”, as well as “into the massive and unprecedented destruction of the agency’s or the UN’s premises in Gaza,” Lazzarini continued.

The UN official, who said he had raised the issue of an investigation with the office of UN Secretary-General António Guterres and UN member states in New York, also condemned the “extraordinary level of impunity” at play in Gaza.

“For two years we have witnessed atrocities such that one gets the feeling this war had no rules, that every possible red line has been crossed, and that there has never been the slightest consequence – diplomatic, political, economic, legal, nothing at all,” he lamented.

Israel appears to have a “licence to kill in Gaza”, he added, warning that this impunity was “spreading”, with those killed in Israeli attacks on neighbouring Lebanon now being “labelled as belonging to Hezbollah”.

UNRWA critics

The UN agency has long been the target of fierce Israeli criticism, which intensified following Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Israel accused the agency of bias and of being “infested with Hamas agents” and banned it from operating on its territory in early 2025.

Established by the UN General Assembly in 1949, UNRWA provides assistance to around 5.9 million Palestinian refugees. It runs health centres and schools in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

Following Israel’s accusations, an international investigation had revealed certain “issues relating to neutrality” within UNRWA, but noted that Israel had not provided conclusive evidence to support its main allegation concerning the employment of members of terrorist organisations within its ranks.

Israeli attacks on the agency, combined with drastic budget cuts, have brought UNRWA to the brink of collapse, warned Lazzarini, who will be temporarily replaced as head of the agency by Christian Saunders, previously Special Coordinator for Improving the United Nations Response to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.

If the international community fails to unite to protect UNRWA, he warned, “the consequences will be catastrophic for a generation, if not longer”.

Translated from French by AI/jdp

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