RUTHFULLY YOURS

Accusations that the United Nations funded Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure by transferring $1.3 billion to the organisation, some of which was used to finance the purchase of weapons used in last year’s October 7 attacks, will only add to the view that the UN is no longer fit to fulfil the role for which it was originally intended.

A lawsuit filed in US Federal Court by victims of the October 7 Hamas attacks makes damning accusations against the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) that it was involved in orchestrating a large-scale money laundering operation from which the terrorist organisation benefitted.

The suit alleges that significant amounts of humanitarian aid intended for Gaza residents were diverted to Hamas.

Gavriel Mairone, the attorney who is representing the plaintiffs, argues that these shocking allegations demonstrate that, for more than a decade, UNRWA’s aid distribution network was involved in widespread fraud and corruption. The lawsuit claims this scheme not only enriched Hamas but also funded terrorism, playing a pivotal role in the October 7 attacks.

Speaking at an event organised by the Jerusalem Press Club earlier this year, Mairone explained how specialized security trucks transported millions of dollars in cash into Gaza.

Some of the physical cash payments made to smugglers for weaponry date back to before 2018. After this date, Qatar began transferring $10 million monthly in cash, and UNRWA added another $20 million, making up two-thirds of the cash flow.

A key element in Mairone’s case is that, while the Palestinian Authority pays its Gaza employees via wire transfers through banks, the payments to Hamas were made in cash, prompting questions about why the different payment systems were necessary.

“Now, the question is why is cash [dollars] being used in this one location and in all the other locations they use local currency?” Mairone asked.

The lawsuit brought by the victims of the October 7 attacks will further add to the pressure the UN is facing over its response to the attacks, and accusations of institutional anti-Israeli bias.

At the very least, the allegations against UNRWA highlight the urgent need for robust oversight and mechanisms to prevent the misuse of humanitarian funds, thereby safeguarding the integrity of aid operations and the well-being of vulnerable populations.

The UN’s standing as an independent arbiter in global affairs has already reached an all-time low as a result of both its association with Hamas and the blatant anti-Israel policy it has adopted since last year’s October 7 attacks, when Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 people and took another 251 into captivity.

The first damning evidence of the UN’s complicity in the worst terrorist atrocity committed in Israel’s history emerged after Israel’s military reported that 450 workers employed by UNRWA were “military operatives from Hamas and other armed groups” and has shared this intelligence with the United Nations.

“Over 450 UNRWA employees are military operatives in terror groups in Gaza – 450. This is no mere coincidence. This is systematic. There is no claiming, ‘we did not know,'” IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari said.

The revelation that UN employees were involved in plotting the barbarous assault prompted many western governments, including the US and U.K., to freeze their donations, although some of these restrictions have subsequently been eased by some western leaders following pressure from hard-Left, pro-Palestinian activists.

The clamour for funding to be restored to UNRWA prompted the White House to confirm last month that it supports resuming funding for the UN agency if appropriate accountability measures are implemented.

This follows the introduction of new legislation by House progressives to restore funding to UNRWA. Congress passed legislation last year that bars US funding to the agency until March 2025.

White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby confirmed that the US still supports restoring funding in principle.

“In light of the fact that there is still an ongoing crisis in Gaza and the essential role that UNRWA does play in the distribution of life-saving assistance, we continue to support funding for UNRWA, with appropriate safeguards, with transparency measures built in and with accountability also baked into that,” Kirby said.

More recently, the ability of proscribed terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah to infiltrate the UN’s ranks was laid bare when it was discovered that a senior Hamas commander killed in an Israeli air strike in Lebanon last month had been working as a UN teacher.

Questions about the UN’s credibility to act as an independent broker in the wake of the October 7 attacks have further been raised over the blatant anti-Israel bias displayed by the UN’s extensive record of vilifying Israel unjustly, as well as the record of UN Secretary General António Guterres.

The dossier of “a UN crime against humanity” and its demonization of Israel is too long to list, but one can get a glimpse of it here, here, here, here, here and here. The persistent criticism levelled at Israel by Guterres, a former socialist prime minister of Portugal, has prompted Israel to take the unprecedented step of banning the UN chief from visiting the country.

Announcing the ban, Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared Guterres persona non grata and an “anti-Israel secretary-general who lends support to terrorists” for seeming to justify terrorism when he claimed that the unprovoked Gaza attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 “didn’t happen in a vacuum.”

The Israeli action is certainly deeply embarrassing for an organisation like the UN, which is no stranger to controversy.

In 2002, the UN was embroiled in the sex-for-food scandal. An 84-page report confirmed that the UN had known for 16 years that workers in more than 40 organisations in Africa were delivering food to children in exchange for sex.

A year later, in 2003, following the Iraq War, Kofi Annan, the then UN Secretary General, was heavily criticised for his role in allowing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to run a highly-profitable oil-smuggling operation to sustain his regime in power.

Following the UN’s own devastating report into the Iraq corruption scandal, the UN said it would undertake wholesale reform to make sure it was immune from corrupt practices.

The mounting scandal over the body’s involvement with Hamas, together with its institutional anti-Israel bias, indicates that no such reform has been undertaken and that the whole organisation is no longer fit for purpose.

Former US National Security Advisor John Bolton made headlines at the time of the Iraq scandal by claiming that, if the top ten floors of the organisation’s New York headquarters were removed, no one would notice the difference.

A better idea, given the body’s recent woeful record on its handling of the Middle East, would be to demolish the entire infrastructure of this corrupt and institutionally biased body.

Con Coughlin is the Telegraph‘s Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.