UNITED NATIONS, April 1. /TASS/. Juliette Touma, a director of communications at the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, said the group is unaware of the reported Israeli suggestion to dissolve it.

"UNRWA has not seen the plan / report referenced in the article," she told TASS.

Earlier, the Guardian cited sources as saying that Israel had submitted a proposal to the UN to disband UNRWA. According to the newspaper, the Israeli proposal calls for the transfer of several hundred UNRWA employees to another UN organization, such as the World Food Program, or to a new organization that could be specially created to distribute food aid in Gaza.

UN Under Secretary General Martin Griffiths warned the world community against attempts to push UNRWA out of Gaza. He said that without the agency it would be impossible to distribute humanitarian aid in the Palestinian enclave.

Some countries, including the US, UK and Germany in January announced the suspension of funding for UNRWA over suspicions that some of the agency’s staff had links to Hamas. UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini ordered the dismissal of several employees who were alleged to have a connection to the Hamas attack on Israel last year.

The agency later accused Israel of torturing its captured officers to extract false confessions of links to the radical group.