UNRWA declined to comment, saying the lawsuit had not yet been filed. (File)
New York:
The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency was denounced Monday by dozens of Israelis who accused it of supporting the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, plaintiffs said the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has spent more than a decade helping Hamas build what they call the ” terror infrastructure' and personnel. necessary for the attack.
The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages for what they allege is UNRWA's support of “Hamas' genocide, crimes against humanity and torture,” which they said was a violation of international law and the federal Torture Victim Protection Act.
UNRWA declined to comment, saying the lawsuit had not yet been filed.
The agency has said it is taking allegations of staff misconduct seriously and has fired 10 staff members accused by Israel of involvement in the attack. Two others died, the report said.
UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini and several current and former agency officials are also defendants.
The claimants include 101 people who survived the attack or had family members who were killed.
Although many of their allegations have been made by the Israeli government, the plaintiffs want UNRWA held accountable for allegedly diverting more than $1 billion from a Manhattan bank account to Hamas, including for weapons, explosives and ammunition .
The plaintiffs accuse UNRWA of providing a “safe haven” to Hamas in its facilities and allowing its schools to use Hamas-approved textbooks to indoctrinate Palestinian children in support of violence and hatred against Jews and Israel.
They also said the attack was “foreseeable” to the defendants, regardless of whether they knew the details.
“We're talking about people who have been murdered, who have lost family members and who have lost homes,” Avery Samet, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in an interview. “We expect the damage to be significant.”
WARNING FROM UNRWA chief
The attack by Hamas militants on October 7 killed 1,200 people, while around 250 other people were kidnapped, according to Israeli figures.
More than 37,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip, health officials in the Hamas-ruled enclave said.
Several countries, including the United States, stopped funding UNRWA after Israel alleged that staffers were involved in the Hamas attack.
In April, Norway called on international donors to resume funding UNRWA after a UN-authorized independent review found that Israel had provided no evidence to support its allegations that hundreds of UNRWA employees were members of terrorist groups.
On Monday, Lazzarini called for resistance to Israeli efforts to disband UNRWA.
“If we don't push back, other UN entities and international organizations will be next, further undermining our multilateral system,” Lazzarini said at a meeting of the agency's advisory committee in Geneva.
Founded in 1949 after the first Arab-Israeli war, UNRWA provides education, health care and humanitarian assistance in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. It is almost entirely financed by the UN member states.
The case is Estate of Kedem et al v. United Nations Relief and Works Agency et al, US District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 24-04765.
(This story has not been edited by Our staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)