MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/. Among the 12 staffers of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), fired on charges of involvement in the October 7 massacre, one has been reinstated, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has told TASS in an interview.

"You remember that there have been accusations about 12 staff members who might have participated in the October 7 massacre. I found these accusations so horrible that after consulting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, I decided to terminate the contract of the 12 people and an investigation has been put in place to look at all the individual cases," Lazzarini said. "We have 12 employees that have been fired. As of today, one employee has been reinstated because this person has been completely cleared, but the rest remain fired," he clarified.

At the same time, Lazzarini noted that Israel was creating many problems for the agency: "There have been a lot of smear campaigns, misinformation and suspicion, and then calls to member states to stop funding the organization."

"In Israel there have been also a legislative effort at the parliament aiming at prohibiting the presence of the agency," he continued. "We have observed repeated calls from the government of Israel to dismantle the agency and to ensure that UNRWA will have no role on the ‘day after’ in Gaza."

The UNRWA’s chief also noted that the organization was facing "administrative bureaucratic type of harassment where the visas of our staff are issued only on a monthly or bimonthly basis, not on an annual basis anymore."

"The Israeli Ministry of Finance tries to lift our immunity and privileges when it comes to the taxes. So, you have a series of activities aimed at reducing, shrinking the operational space of the agency and to make it almost impossible to operate," Lazzarini stated. "In the Gaza Strip, you know that we have been prevented from organizing convoys from the south to the north despite the fact that in the north we have the most acute hunger and starvation going on. So the UNRWA was being prevented from directly accessing the north with its convoys."

The head of the UNRWA said that the UN Secretary-General had commissioned a review to look into all the risk management system of the organization and to look at if they were to preserve the neutrality of the organization.

"This week, this report came out and said that the agency is not only indispensable and irreplaceable, but has developed policies and systems, which are more robust than any other UN agency or international NGOs, but because of the complex environment where we operate and the unique nature of the organization we can always do more to improve our adherence," he noted. "That's exactly what we will do."

Escalation in Middle East

The situation in the Middle East sharply worsened after the infiltration of Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, which was accompanied by the killing of residents of border settlements and the taking of more than 240 hostages. In response, Israel announced a complete blockade of Gaza and began retaliating against it and some areas of Lebanon and Syria. Later, it launched a ground operation in the enclave.