Britain suspends funding for UN aid agency implicated in Oct 7 attack

Britain has suspended its funding for the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) after 12 of its employees were accused of taking part in the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.

The Foreign Office said it was “appalled” by the claims as it followed the United States, Canada, Australia and Italy in putting its funding on hold.

Israel has vowed to ban the UNRWA from operating in Gaza once the war is over after the agency sacked the workers on Friday.

Foreign Office documents show Britain has given UNRWA £27 million in aid since October 2022. . . Britain planned to hand it a further £2 million on April 15 and £9 million on October 1 this year.

Robert Jenrick, the former cabinet minister, who had accused ministers of having been “too blasé about who we have funded and for what purpose”, said: “I’m pleased the UK has followed the US in pausing support to UNRWA whilst these allegations are investigated. It’s an organisation whose leadership has fallen into a moral morass of complicity with Hamas, turning a blind eye to the terrorists,” he told The Telegraph.

The UNRWA said on Friday that Israel had handed over intelligence alleging that a number of its workers were involved in October 7.

The UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO that scrutinises the work of the UN, earlier this month raised the alarm about alleged Hamas sympathies among multiple UN employees in Gaza. The group cited hate posts in a Telegram group of about 3,000 UNRWA teachers in Gaza, praising the Hamas attackers as “heroes”.