Israel yet to back up UNRWA claims, report finds

It’s 10pm (19:00 GMT) in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel. Let’s bring you up to speed with the most significant developments in the past few hours:

• The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says it “welcomes the findings and recommendations of the independent review” on the agency, saying the report confirms it has mechanisms in place to ensure “compliance with the principle of neutrality”.
• The review, led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, says Israel has yet to provide evidence for its allegations that a significant number of UNRWA staff were members of “terrorist organisations”.
• Major General Aharon Haliva, head of Israel’s military intelligence, resigns, citing the failure to stop Hamas’s deadly attacks on southern Israel on October 7.
• Dozens of protesters are arrested during pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University, shortly after the school cancelled in-person classes to de-escalate tensions on its New York campus.
• Gaza’s civil defence agency says it has recovered 283 bodies so far from mass graves discovered near the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis after Israel’s withdrawal.
  

  Israel’s Gaza war has negatively impacted human rights, US report says

  Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and resulted in a severe humanitarian crisis, has had “a significant negative impact” on the human rights situation, the US State Department said in its annual report.

  Significant human rights issues include credible reports of arbitrary or unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, torture and unjustified arrests of journalists, said the State Department’s 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.

  Rights groups have flagged numerous incidents of civilian harm during Israel’s offensive in Gaza and have raised alarm about rising violence in the occupied West Bank, where Palestinian Health Ministry records show Israeli forces or settlers have killed at least 460 Palestinians since October 7.

  Despite the many reports, the Biden administration said it has not found Israel in breach of international law so far.

  Dozens arrested during pro-Palestinian demonstration at Columbia University

  The protest took place hours after the school cancelled in-person classes to de-escalate tensions on its New York campus, where police cracked down on a tent encampment last week.

  Protests have been held at Yale University, Columbia and other campuses across the nation in response to Israel’s war on Gaza.

  UNRWA welcomes Colonna report’s findings and recommendations

  The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees “welcomes the findings and recommendations of the independent review on the agency’s adherence to the humanitarian principle of neutrality”, the head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, says in a statement.

  “The report confirms that UNRWA has established – over many years – policies, mechanisms and procedures to ensure compliance with the principle of neutrality” he said.

  “Safeguarding the neutrality of the agency is central to our ability to continue saving lives and contributing to the human development of Palestine Refugees in the Gaza Strip as it faces an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, and in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.”

  He also stated that the agency is developing an action plan with a timeline and budget to implement the report’s recommendations.

  ‘This opens up a Pandora’s box of potential sanctions on Israeli units’: Rights group

  Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a Washington, DC-based rights group, says Israel has ignored warnings about the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, which has been accused of committing human rights violations against Palestinians, and instead has allowed it to act with impunity.

  On Saturday, Axios reported that Washington was planning to impose sanctions on the battalion.

  “If the US puts Leahy sanctions

  Colonna report ‘discredits the allegations’ made against UNRWA: Expert

  Jo Kelcey, an assistant professor of education at the Lebanese American University, describes the Colonna report as “overwhelmingly positive” and says it “really discredits the allegations that have been made against [UNRWA]”.

  She told Al Jazeera that it highlights a “sustained disinformation campaign against the agency” and shows UNRWA  “has the right checks and balances in place”.

  Kelcey said the report’s findings should allow the agency to return to its core work, which includes providing food to people in Gaza who are starving, building shelters and getting children back into school.

  on even one Israeli unit, what it is really saying is that it has lost confidence that the Israeli justice system is willing or capable of holding its soldiers and officers accountable,” said Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, director of research for Israel-Palestine at DAWN.

  “That opens up a Pandora’s box of potential sanctions on a slew of Israeli units, but only if the Israelis don’t improve their accountability mechanisms. Leahy sanctions are intended to be corrective, not punitive.

  “They disappear the moment the secretary of state certifies that the country is taking effective steps toward accountability. Netanyahu’s defiance suggests that his government isn’t willing to take such steps.”

  If Israel has such damaging evidence, where is it?

  There are two separate reports; that’s the confusing thing about this.

  [Colonna’s] report looked at the mechanisms of UNRWA and looked at whether they needed to be reformed.

  While there’s a specific report into potential wrongdoing of UN staff, and remember, Israel claimed that 12 UNRWA staff were involved in the October 7 attacks, it also made claims that 12 percent of the organisation was affiliated with Hamas. The UN Office of Internal Oversight is conducting a separate report.

  [Colonna’s] report does touch on this issue, and you have heard people asking about it at the UN. Israel has made public claims that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organisations. However, Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of this.

  We’ve heard similar things from the UN spokesman every single day when he’s asked about this at the daily UN briefing, and it does beg the question; if Israel has such damaging allegations, why does it not provide the evidence?

  UNRWA ‘one of the best’ UN agencies: AJ senior analyst

  Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, Marwan Bishara, says the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is “one of the best-performing UN agencies”.

  “It is evaluated, reviewed, and audited, and various recommendations are made. I think it’s part of the nature of things of any UN agency,” Bishara said.

  He noted that when Israel began making allegations against UNRWA staff in Gaza in January, the Israeli army had already killed some 150 UN staff members there.

  “We are putting UNRWA on the stand … while the country that is killing UN staff is, of course, not at all on the stand,” Bishara said.

  Haliva’s resignation has not led to much fallout

  Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has accepted the resignation of Major-General Aharon Haliva, head of Israel’s military intelligence, but he will remain in his position until a replacement is found.

  Other senior leaders are expected to accept responsibility for October 7 at some point.

  Many of them did in the aftermath. The head of the Shin Bet, the internal security forces, said he accepted responsibility for the failings, and the head of the army and the chief of staff said that they also failed in preventing October 7.

  The main person you haven’t heard from is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

  There was some finger-pointing today from the opposition leader, Yair Lapid, welcoming Haliva’s resignation, saying it was the honourable and justifiable thing to do and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be doing the same.

  This was a catastrophic failure on an intelligence level and on a military level.

  There were warnings up to a year before this attack; a blueprint had been given to Israel that Hamas seems to have executed almost down to every line. Even in the days ahead, there were warnings from Netanyahu’s allies that Hamas was moving in unusual ways.

  So, it was a massive failure, the biggest in Israel’s history.

  Netanyahu says he will answer tough questions, but now is not the time, and that he will do so after the war is over.