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Israel Accuses More UNRWA Officials of Participating in Oct. 7 Massacre

(Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)
March 4, 2024

Israel on Monday released recordings it said implicated two more employees with the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attacks.

The Jewish state posted on X two phone calls it said the staffers, both teachers, made during the massacre in which they referenced being inside Israel and taking female hostages.

"I'm inside. I'm inside with the Jews," Mamduh Hasin Ahmed Alkali allegedly told a person on the other end of the line.

"Shut up, we have female captives. I caught one," Yusef Zidan Suleiman al-Hawajara, another UNRWA teacher, can be heard saying in a phone call.

Alkali is part of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, while al-Hawajara is part of Hamas, according to an X post from Israeli spokesman Eylon Levy. Both allegedly operate in the groups' military organizations. The Washington Free Beacon could not reach the individuals for comment.

"UNRWA encourages any entity that has any information on the very serious allegations against UNRWA staff to share it with the ongoing U.N. investigation," UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma told the Free Beacon. "This investigation is led by the Office of Internal Oversight Services in the United Nations Headquarters in New York. This investigation is done independently to UNRWA."

The accusations come nearly a month after the Israel Defense Forces said it found a Hamas data center underneath UNRWA's Gaza City headquarters. Previous accusations from Israel that 12 of the agency's employees took part in the Oct. 7 attacks led the United States to freeze the funding it was giving to it. Monday's allegations brings the total number of UNRWA staffers Israel has accused of participating in the terror attacks to 14.

Israeli intelligence in January accused about 1,200 Gazan UNRWA staff of having ties to terrorist organizations.

Published under: Gaza , Hamas , Israel , UNRWA