UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met the head of internal UN investigations to ensure that an inquiry into Israeli accusations against staff at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNWRA) "will be done swiftly and as efficiently as possible," a UN spokesperson said.
Mr Guterres has "been engaging with the UNRWA leadership and donors to UNRWA" and will host a meeting with major UNRWA donors in New York tomorrow, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
An Israeli intelligence dossier that prompted a cascade of countries to halt funds for the UN Palestinian aid agency includes allegations that some staff took part in abductions and killings during the 7 October raid that prompted the Gaza war.
The six-page dossier, seen by Reuters, alleges that some 190 UNRWA employees, including teachers, have doubled as Hamas or Islamic Jihad militants.
It has names and pictures for 11 them.
The Palestinians have accused Israel of falsifying information to tarnish UNRWA, which said it has fired some staffers and is investigating the allegations.
The dossier said one of the 11 is a school counsellor who helped his son abduct a woman during the Hamas attack in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 253 kidnapped.
Another, an UNRWA social worker, is accused of unspecified involvement in the transfer to Gaza of a dead Israeli soldier's bodya nd of coordinating the movements of pick-up trucks used by the militants and of weapons supplies.
A third Palestinian in the dossier is accused of taking part in a rampage in the Israeli border village Beeri, one tenth of whose residents were killed.
A fourth is accused of participating in an attack on Reim, site both of an army base that was overrun and a rave where more than 360 people died.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini should go.
"UNRWA employees participated in the massacre of 7 October," he said.
"Lazzarini should draw conclusions and resign," he added.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh accused Israel of a "premeditated political attack" on the agency, which it has long criticised and called for restoration of aid funds.
The dossier was shown to Reuters by a source who could not be identified by name or nationality.
The source said that it had been compiled by Israeli intelligence and shared with the United States, which on Friday suspended funding for UNRWA.
An Israeli official told Reuters the 190 mentioned in the dossier were "hardened fighters, killers" whereas overall some 10% of UNRWA staff were believed to have more general affiliation with Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The agency employs 13,000 people in Gaza.
Asked about the dossier, a spokesperson for UNRWA said she could not comment due to an ongoing probe by the United Nations.
More than 10 countries, including major donors the United States and Germany, have halted their funding to the agency.
Aid jeopardised
That is a huge problem for an agency that more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians look to for day-to-day assistance, and which has already been hard-stretched by Israel's war on Hamas in the enclave.
UNRWA said it would not be able to continue operations in Gaza and across the region beyond the end of February if funding were not resumed.
The agency was set up for refugees of the 1948 war at Israel's founding in what had been British-ruled Palestine.
It also tends to millions of the original refugees' descendants in Palestinian territories and abroad.
Israel has long accused UNRWA of perpetuating conflict by discouraging resettlement of refugees and on occasions in the past has said agency staff took part in armed attacks.
UNRWA denies wrongdoing, describing its role as relief only.
"From intelligence information, documents and identity cards seized during the course of the fighting, it is now possible to flag around 190 Hamas and PIJ terrorist operatives who serve as UNRWA employees," the Hebrew-language dossier said.
It accuses Hamas of "methodically and deliberately deploying its terrorist infrastructure in a wide range of UN facilities and assets" including schools.
Hamas denies that.
Two of the alleged Hamas operatives cited in the dossier are described as "eliminated," or killed by Israeli forces.
A twelfth Palestinian whose name and picture are provided is said to have no factional membership and to have infiltrated Israel on 7 October.
Also, in the list of 12 men are an UNRWA teacher accused of arming himself with an anti-tank rocket, another teacher accused of filming a hostage and the manager of a shop in an UNRWA school accused of opening a war-room for Islamic Jihad.
More than 26,000 people have been killed in Israel's military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, the enclave's health ministry said.
The flow of aid like food and medicine is at just a trickle of pre-conflict levels, deaths from preventable diseases as well as risk of famine are growing, aid workers said.
Most of Gaza's people have become more reliant on UNRWA aid, including about one million who have fled Israeli bombardments to shelter in its facilities.
"The terrrorist organisations are cynically exploiting the residents of the Strip and the international organisations whose mission is to provide aid ... and in doing so are causing defacto harm to residents of the Strip," the dossier said.
At the weekend, UN head Antonio Guterres vowed to hold to account any employee involved in "abhorrent" acts, but implored nations to keep funding UNRWA for humanitarian reasons.
"The tens of thousands of men and women who work for UNRWA, many in some of the most dangerous situations for humanitarian workers, should not be penalised," he said.
"The dire needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met," he added.
Meanwhile, the EU demanded an "urgent" audit of UNRWA and said it is reviewing funding, following Israeli allegations that some staff participated in Hamas's 7 October attack.
The audit must be led by European Commission-appointed experts and conducted alongside a UN investigation into the claims, commission spokesman Eric Mamer told journalists.
"What is absolutely clear is that these actions are urgent. They are important and they should be launched without any delay," Mr Mamer said.
The European Union is one of UNRWA's top donors.
A commission statement said the EU executive "will determine upcoming funding decisions for UNRWA in light of the very serious allegations made on 24 January relating to the involvement of UNRWA staff in the heinous 7 October attacks".
It said that no additional funding to UNRWA "is foreseen until the end of February".
But it added that humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza and in the West Bank "will continue unabated through partner organisations".
UNRWA has fired several staff members over Israel's accusations, which have prompted numerous countries, including the United States, France, Britain, Germany and Japan, to announce they were suspending further funding to the UN agency.
The European Commission said it "will review the matter in light of the outcome of the investigation announced by the UN and the actions it will take".
The head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, vowed to hold "accountable, including through criminal prosecution", any employee found to have been involved in "acts of terror".
UN chief Antonio Guterres has promised an urgent independent review of UNRWA, but also pleaded for donor states to "guarantee the continuity" of the agency for the sake of "the desperate populations" it serves.
Earlier, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said he "would be very concerned" about the future of UNWRA following the decision of nine countries to withdraw funding from the programme.
Mr Martin said that those countries acted "prematurely" and that an entire population should not be punished because of the actions of some workers.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Chris Gunness, a former spokesperson for the UN Relief and Works Agency said the allegations were very serious, but added that aid should not be suspended until they "get to the bottom of exactly what happened".
"What is the point is the question I would say to these Governments. What are you trying to achieve by suspending aid?
"Do you not realise that this is adding to the collective punishment of the people of Gaza," he said.
"UNRWA has implemented a zero-tolerance policy even before this information was checked in the investigation that is taking place independent up in New York.
"The zero-tolerance policy meant that UNRWA has opened itself up to the possibility of compensation claims because there was not a full investigation, and I would say to anybody listening this is 12 bad apples in a workforce of 13,000 people."
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Mr Gunness added that workers are bringing relief to "new mothers, children covered in burns, the wounded, the sick, the elderly, the dying".
"Those are the people who are being punished by this disproportionate and punitive response by the donors. It is whole unconscionable - it is actually immoral."
He said the decision to suspend funding will the "catastrophic" for the people of Gaza.
He said his colleagues are determined to "continue amid the bombs" carrying aid to some of the most "desperate" and "fragile" people in the Middle East.
