The controversial United Nations aid agency serving Palestinians in Gaza has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, even as some of its employees are accused of killing and kidnapping Israelis on October 7.
Norwegian Labor MP Asmund Aukrust told a local newspaper on Thursday that he nominated the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) “for its long-term work in providing vital support to Palestine and the wider region.
“This work has been crucial for more than 70 years and even more vital in the last three months,” said Auskrust, who also serves as deputy chairman of the Norwegian parliament’s foreign affairs committee.
The nomination for the iconic award comes as Norwegian officials are trying to persuade Western allies to reconsider their decision to cut funding to the agency over an Israeli dossier that surfaced last week describing how a dozen employees of the UNRWA, including several teachers, participated in the Hamas massacre. in October.
Some of the employees who allegedly posed as terrorists kidnapped and killed people, according to the damning Israeli investigation.
Some 1,200 UNRWA workers are known to have ties to the terrorist organization, according to the file.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize “for its long-term work to provide vital support to Palestine and the broader region,” according to the official who pushed for the move. REUTERS
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the dossier’s conclusions “very, very credible.”
“Personally, I think participating in rape, murder, torture, executions and kidnappings should disqualify you from the Nobel Peace Prize, but I’m SO old-fashioned,” screenwriter Lee Kern. posted in X in response to the UNRWA nomination.
Danny Danon, Israel’s representative to the UN, also criticized the measure.
“Why stop there? Why not extend the same offer to Hamas?” he he asked sarcastically.
A Jewish banker from Miami echoed these sentiments: saying: “What’s the next step? A statue of Bin Laden at the entrance to the UN building in New York?
The United States was the first to cut funding to UNRWA after the allegations emerged last week.
“The United States is extremely concerned about allegations that 12 UNRWA employees may have been involved in the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel on October 7,” the State Department said in a statement.
Other nations, including Canada, Italy, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Finland, soon followed suit.
But the group’s advocates say it provides needed aid to residents of the Gaza Strip, many of whom face hunger and disease as the war continues.
UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer testifies before Congress earlier this week about Israel’s damning dossier against UNRWA, noting that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called it “very, very credible.” “. fake images
The United Nations has said a suspension of aid by major donors could jeopardize UNRWA’s work within weeks, and Martin Griffiths, the U.N.’s top humanitarian official, told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday. international organization that its operations in Gaza “are completely dependent on UNRWA being adequately funded and operational.”
He said withholding funds for the “alleged actions of a few individuals is an extraordinarily disproportionate matter.”
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide echoed Griffiths’ remarks, saying the strategy “amounts, in a sense, to collective punishment of millions of Palestinians,” according to the New York Times.
In 2014, weapons were found hidden in three UNRWA-run schools. REUTERS
But support for the aid agency among U.S. lawmakers remains low, and Congress is considering several measures to suspend a total of more than $1 billion in funding for the group.
On Thursday, a coalition of 26 state attorneys general sent a letter to congressional leaders of both parties calling on the federal government to permanently halt all U.S. financial aid to UNRWA.
“It is time for Congress to stop funding this organization that rapes, murders and kidnaps innocent people, and has demonstrated that it has no will, desire or ability to limit itself to humanitarian aid and not support anti-Semitism and terrorism,” he wrote. the group in the letter, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
“There is no reason to fund organizations that support terrorist operations,” the statement said. “It is very clear, and has been for some time, that UNRWA does precisely that.”
UNRWA advocates say it provides needed aid to residents of the Gaza Strip, many of whom face hunger and disease as the war continues. Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
Since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, UNRWA leaders trying to impose a sense of neutrality in the conflict have faced threats and attacks, the Wall Street Journal reported.
A former official who oversaw the earlier dismissal of UNRWA employees with alleged links to Hamas and the removal of weapons from schools was given a box full of grenades, prompting him to leave the area in 2015.
The year before he left, weapons were found in three UNRWA-run schools and some had gone missing, according to the Journal.
Several of the UNRWA schools are also believed to hide tunnels where Hamas officials may hold hostages.
Several Western nations, including the United States, have cut off funding for the group. Debbie Hill/UPI/Shutterstock
The UN is investigating reports that UNRWA employees participated in Hamas’s brutal invasion of Israel and has fired most of the 12 defendants.
Two of the employees named in the Israeli file died in the war.
According to the Times, an investigation into the claims could take up to four weeks.
With post cables
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Source: vtt.edu.vn