The outgoing chief of UNRWA – the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees – has called for an independent probe into the deaths of hundreds of staff in Gaza, warning that unchecked violence and impunity risk fuelling a wider regional crisis.
On his final day in office, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini called for an investigation into the killing of nearly 400 staff in Gaza, urging the creation of a high-level panel of experts to examine the deaths. Speaking to reporters in Geneva, he said: “I believe we need a high-level panel of experts to look into the killing of our staff.”
The 62-year-old Swiss national condemned the fact that "more than 390" of the agency's staff had been killed in Gaza since the 7 October Hamas attack triggered the war in 2023.
"Many others have sustained life-changing injuries or have been arbitrarily detained and tortured," he said, adding that the killing of other UN staff needed to be investigated too.
Lazzarini said he had raised the issue of an investigation with the office of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and with UN member states.
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'Licence to kill'
He lamented that Israel's conduct of the war gave the impression that "all possible red lines have been crossed, and there have never ever been any consequences, whether diplomatic, political, economic, legal, nothing".
Criticising an "extraordinary level of impunity", Lazzarini argued that Israel appeared to have "a licence to kill" in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Killings of UNRWA staff and other aid workers, health workers and journalists were routinely justified with the victims "labelled as being Hamas", he pointed out.
And he warned that that sense of impunity was now "spreading", with people killed in Israel's attacks on neighbouring Lebanon now "labelled as being Hezbollah".
Referring to the ongoing US-Israeli war with Iran, Lazzarini argued that the world's "abject failure" to respond set "the stage for a war outside the bounds of international law that is now spreading across and beyond the Middle East".
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6 million Palestinian refugees
Relations between Israel and Lazzarini's agency – which supports nearly six million Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria – have long been strained, but they have fallen off a cliff since the start of the war.
Israel has barred UNRWA from operating on its soil, accusing the agency of providing cover for Hamas militants, and claiming that some of the agency's employees took part in the 7 October attack.
A series of UN-linked internal and external investigations found some "neutrality-related issues" at UNRWA, but stressed Israel had not provided conclusive evidence for its headline allegation.
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Israeli authorities earlier this year also began demolishing UNRWA's headquarters in east Jerusalem, in a move Lazzarini called "extraordinarily outrageous".
Israel's attacks on the agency, coupled with extreme funding cuts, have left UNRWA facing "collapse", warned Lazzarini.
If the international community protect UNRWA, he warned, "the consequences will be catastrophic for a generation or more".
In a rare move at the UN, no one has been appointed to replace Lazzarini. For the time being, UNRWA will be led by an acting commissioner.
He will be temporarily replaced by Christian Saunders, the special coordinator on improving the UN's response to sexual exploitation and abuse, whose mission will be to keep the agency running for as long as possible.
(with AFP)
