The Israeli army and internal security service said Saturday that they discovered a tunnel of the Islamist movement Hamas under the headquarters of the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in City of Loop.
UNRWA, which Israel accuses of being “totally infiltrated by hamas”, indicated for its part that it has not occupied its headquarters since October 12, five days after the bloody attack by the Palestinian movement in Israeli territory that triggered the war in Gaza.
The Israeli Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, considered that “the revelation of the deep involvement of the headquarters of the UNRWA in Gaza with Hamas (…) demands immediate action.
“The immediate resignation” of Philippe Lazzarini, director of this UN agency, “is imperative,” he stated on the social network X.
According to him Israeli army and the Shin Betmilitary operations in Gaza City of recent weeks led to the discovery of a “tunnel entrance” near a school run by the UN humanitarian agency.
In the last ten years, Hamas has dug in the Gaza Strip a large number of tunnels, in which Israel claims its fighters hide.
In October, a study by Modern War Institute of the American Academy West Point identified 1,300 tunnels, covering more than 500 km of underground corridors.
“The entrance led to an underground terrorist tunnel that was a major asset for US military intelligence.” Hamas and passed under the building that serves as UNRWA’s main headquarters in the Gaza Strip“, Israeli sources indicated in a statement.
They also added that “the facilities of the UNRWA supplied electricity to the tunnel”, 700 meters long and 18 meters underground, and that they found documents and weapons in the UN compound, which “confirms that the offices were also used by terrorists of Hamas“.
“We have not used this building since we abandoned it and we have no evidence of any other activity taking place,” responded the UNRWAwho left the headquarters by order of the Israeli forces due to the intensification of the bombings.
Israel’s accusations “deserve an independent investigation, which is impossible at this time since Gaza is in an active war zone,” he added.
According to Israel, 12 of the agency’s 13,000 employees in the Gaza Strip They were involved in the Hamas attack on October 7. Last week he assured that he would demonstrate “the links of the UNRWA with terrorism“.
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The UN internally investigates the accusations against the employees, who were fired, and the general secretary of the organization, Antonio Guterresappointed an independent commission to evaluate the “neutrality” of the agency.