The United Nations, with the backing of the United States Department of Justice filed an official document in a U.S. court, arguing UNRWA employees implicated in the Oct. 7 massacres should be immune from prosecution, according to a report on Israel's Channel 12 Saturday evening.
In the document submitted to the court, the U.N. claims the UNRWA employees who participated in the massacre have immunity: "Since the U.N. has not waived their immunity in this case, its subsidiary organization, UNRWA, continues to enjoy absolute immunity from prosecution, and the lawsuit should be dismissed."
BREAKING: The United Nations 🇺🇳 demands immunity for UNRWA employees involved in the massacre on October 7th.
— Vivid.🇮🇱 (@VividProwess) September 21, 2024
This is a photo of two UNRWA terrorists after killing an Israeli civilian on October 7th and kidnapping his body.
Am I tripping, or has this world gone mad? pic.twitter.com/M4TJv9XbOz
Furthermore, the U.S. Justice Department under the questionable stewardship of the Attorney General Merrick Garland, backed the U.N.'s play: "The plaintiffs' complaint does not present a theory under which the United Nations waived its immunity. Therefore, since the U.N. has not waived their immunity in this case, its subsidiary organization, UNRWA, continues to enjoy absolute immunity from prosecution, and the lawsuit against the defendant UNRWA should be dismissed due to the lack of subject matter."
We are not talking unpaid parking tickets in New York City, here, which can simply be waived away. At issue is the participation of hundreds of UNRWA employees – at various levels of seniority – in the worst anti-Jewish pogrom in some 80 years.
It is estimated some 10% of UNRWA's 14,000 or so Gaza staff (pre-war) also moonlight as Hamas operatives.
In August, UNRWA itself acknowledged nine of its staff "may have been involved in the Oct. 7 massacre," although this figure seems unrealistically low. Additionally, credible reports have emerged of high-ranking UNRWA employees stealing and hoarding the aid which has flowed into Gaza to offset a non-existent threat of famine.
.@WhiteHouse How can you call to fund UNRWA, “with safeguards, transparency, accountability, vetting of personnel & investigating credible reports of violations”? Don't you know UNRWA knowingly employs Hamas terrorists? The proof: https://t.co/0XpYypJKtJhttps://t.co/xVXVvIzDPM
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 20, 2024
In July, Israel's parliament – the Knesset – passed the first reading of a trilogy of bills aimed at shuttering the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East amid evidence the organization is increasingly indivisible from the Gaza Strip's rulers, Hamas. Indeed, on the evidence, it branded UNRWA a "terrorist organization."
If further evidence of the dystopian nightmare many of us have felt we are inhabiting over the last few years – and particularly since the Hamas onslaught against southern Israel – then this might just be the concluding piece.
It is also a particularly nasty and capricious piece of lawfare, with Channel 12 explaining the onus would now be on the surviving family members having to demonstrate why the immunity protecting UNRWA workers should be revoked.
