{*Edited and researched by Arlene Kushner} At a time when nations of the world seek a neutral entity that can manage the funds for the rehab of Gaza, some people have suggested that UNRWA be considered as that entity.
However, before appointing UNRWA it would be best to examine UNRWA statements and actions during the Israeli-Hamas conflict of 2014
June 27 through August 23
As UNRWA statements and actions are reviewed, certain factors become readily evident:
• UNRWA, which has a mandate to function as a humanitarian relief organization, consistently and inappropriately politicizes its positions.
• That politicization is expressed via a virulently anti-Israel stance.
• UNRWA is controlled by or allows itself to be used by Hamas. Its representatives studiously avoid mention of Hamas behavior that is egregiously destructive to the civilians of Gaza.
• UNRWA statements are frequently tendentious. They include distortions of fact, and blatant misrepresentations.
Hamas
UNRWA’s relationship to Hamas is at the core of this review.
An examination of UNRWA press releases and public statements by UNRWA representatives for the time period of this report reveals that Hamas is almost never mentioned by name.
On July 11, for example, Robert Turner, Director of UNRWA Operations in Gaza, exhibiting a rare attempt to be (to seem) even-handed, said:
“The United Nations has condemned indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza on civilian areas in Israel and I do so again now.”
“Rocket fire from Gaza…” Perhaps the rockets fire themselves. There is no mention that Hamas is doing the bulk of the launching. And as to the fire being “indiscriminate… Does he suggest that there is a discriminating way to fire rockets at civilians?
►Not once during this time period was there a complaint or accusation voiced publicly by an UNRWA representative with regard to the Hamas practice of launching rockets and firing mortars from or near civilian sites — most particularly in this context, UNRWA installations.
Were one to form an impression of the war based solely on statements emanating from UNRWA, one would not know that such a practice – involving extensive utilization of civilians as human shields, which is blatantly in defiance of international law – had been taking place.
The failure of UNRWA personnel to refer to Hamas’s use of human shields is particularly disturbing because UNRWA’s mandate is humanitarian: the agency’s first obligation is to the wellbeing of the Palestinian Arabs, referred to as refugees, for whom it maintains responsibility.
An UNRWA document declares explicitly that:
“UNRWA has a very clear mandate for protection…[which includes] obtaining full respect for the rights of the individual in accordance with the letter and spirit of the relevant bodies of law (that is, human rights law, international humanitarian law…)”
http://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/201006109246.pdf
At the very same time, article 28 of the Forth Geneva Convention states that:
“The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.”
Similarly the 1998 ICC Statute declares that:
“Utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations” constitutes a war crime.
It is not remotely within the realm of the possible that UNRWA, an international humanitarian agency, is unaware of these legal prohibitions.
Nor does it withstand the test of credibility that UNRWA staff might have been unaware of Hamas’s practice in this regard. Hamas even put out a video encouraging it:
http://www.idfblog.com/blog/2014/07/08/hamas-uses-human-shields/
What we are seeing is a willful readiness to ignore these Hamas practices – in spite of the obligation of UNRWA to respond to them. In this sense, UNRWA has most grievously failed those individuals for whom it has responsibility.