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UNRWA CHIEF ACCUSES ISRAEL OF TORTURING STAFF AS US BACKS BAN ON
AGENCY AT WORLD COURT  
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Brett Wilkins
April 30, 2025
Common Dreams
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_ Nearly 300 UNRWA workers have been killed in Israeli attacks since
October 2023, and dozens of other agency staffers have alleged torture
during Israel Defense Forces detention. _

Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner of the the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency (UNRWA), © 2020 UNRWA Photo

 

As the International Court of Justice this week weighs an Israeli ban
on a United Nations agency that provides lifesaving aid in Gaza
[[link removed]], the program's leader called
out attacks on its workers while the United States defended
Israel—the recipient of billions of dollars in U.S. military
assistance.

The ICJ is holding a week of hearings
[[link removed]] in The Hague,
Netherlands following the U.N. General Assembly's December passage
[[link removed]] of a
Norwegian-led resolution asking the tribunal, which is also known as
the World Court, for an advisory opinion on Israel's legal obligation
to "ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed
supplies essential to the survival of the Palestinian civilian
population."

Among the 38 nations and three regional blocs scheduled to address the
15 ICJ judges, only the United States and Hungary have so far
defended Israel [[link removed]], whose
forces have killed
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300 United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
[[link removed]] Refugees in the Near
East (UNRWA) workers during their nearly 19-month annihilation of
Gaza.

"An occupational power retains a margin of appreciation concerning
which relief schemes to permit," U.S. State Department legal adviser
Joshua Simmons argued before the court Wednesday, referring to
Israel's 58-year occupation of Palestine, which the ICJ ruled
[[link removed]] an
illegal form of apartheid in a June 2024 advisory opinion.

"Even if an organization offering relief is an impartial humanitarian
organization, and even if it is a major actor, occupation law does not
compel an occupational power to allow and facilitate that specific
actor's relief operations," Simmons continued, noting "serious
concerns about UNRWA's impartiality, including information that Hamas
has used UNRWA facilities and that UNRWA staff participated in the
October 7th terrorist attack against Israel" in 2023.

"Given these concerns, it is clear that Israel has no obligation to
permit UNRWA specifically to provide humanitarian assistance," Simmons
added. "UNRWA is not the only option for providing humanitarian
assistance in Gaza."

In what UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini described
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the time as an act of "reverse due process," the agency fired nine
employees in February 2024 following Israeli allegations that they
were involved in the Hamas-led attack on Israel in which more than
1,100 Israelis were killed and 251 Israeli and foreign survivors were
kidnapped.

Lazzarini admitted to terminating the staffers without due process or
an adequate investigation of Israel's claims. A subsequent probe
[[link removed]] by the U.N. Office of
Oversight Services "was not able to independently authenticate
information used by Israel to support the allegations."

On Tuesday, Lazzarini reminded
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world that "over 50 UNRWA staff—among them teachers, doctors, social
workers—have been detained and abused" by Israeli forces since
October 2023.

"They have been treated in the most shocking and inhumane way," he
continued. "They reported being beaten up and used as human shields.
They were subjected to sleep deprivation, humiliation, threats of harm
to them and their families, and attacks by dogs. Many were subjected
to forced confessions."

Those forced confessions spurred numerous nations including the United
States to cut off funding
[[link removed]] to UNRWA. Almost
all of the countries have since restored
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as Israel's claims have been debunked or questioned over a lack of
evidence.

The U.S.—which has not restored funding for UNRWA—earlier this
week abandoned
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long-standing position that the body is immune from lawsuits, opening
the door for cases by October 7 survivors and victims' relatives
stemming from dubious claims of agency involvement in the attack.

In addition to accusing Israeli troops of torturing its staffers,
UNRWA has also documented
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allegedly suffered by Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, including
interrupted drowning—also known as waterboarding—being shot in the
knees with nail guns, sexual abuse of both men and women, and
being sodomized
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electric batons. The Israel Defense Forces is investigating
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of in-custody deaths, many of them at the notorious
[[link removed]] Sde Teiman
base in the Negev Desert.

While Israel's physical assault on Gaza has killed hundreds of UNRWA
workers, its diplomatic war on the U.N. has seen the agency banned
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in Palestine and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres declared
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non grata" in Israel after he included Israel
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his 2024 "list of shame" of countries and armed groups that kill and
injure children during wartime.

The U.S.-backed 572-day war waged by the far-right government of
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is a fugitive
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International Criminal Court—has left more than 184,000 Palestinians
dead, maimed, or missing in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health
Ministry. Nearly all of the embattled enclave's more than 2 million
people have been forcibly displaced and Israel's "complete siege" of
the coastal strip has fueled
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starvation and illness.

This week's ICJ hearing comes amid the tribunal's ongoing genocide
case
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Israel, which was brought by South Africa and is backed by dozens of
nations either individually or via regional blocs. The court
has issued
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provisional orders in the case, all of which Israel has been accused
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flouting.

Responding to the U.S. intervention in this week's ICJ hearings,
Palestinian Ambassador to the Netherlands Ammar Hijazi told
[[link removed]]_Middle
East Eye_ that "everybody knows that Israel is using humanitarian aid
as a weapon of war and is starving the population in Gaza because of
that."

U.N. agencies and international humanitarian groups have warned
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imminent risk of renewed famine in Gaza as food stocks run out.

"The U.S. intervention is very narrow in its scope, when it highlights
the rights of an occupying power but ignores the so many layers of
duties of that occupying power that Israel is in violation of," Hijazi
added.

Among the countries defending UNRWA during Wednesday's ICJ session
were Indonesia and Russia, which is currently waging a war against
Ukraine. Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono affirmed "the Palestinian
people's right to self-determination," while Maksim Musikhin, legal
director of Russia's Foreign Ministry, argued that "international law
should be respected by Israel" and that UNRWA deserves a Nobel Peace
Prize.

_Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams._

* Israel-Gaza War
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* UNRWA
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* Torture
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