Israel has long targeted UNRWA and made claims against it without providing evidence [GETTY]
The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees has hit back at Israel after the country’s foreign ministry launched an ad campaign portraying the group’s workers as terrorists.
UNRWA accused Israel of running ‘a global disinformation campaign’ after images of a masked man wearing its logo in the colours of Hamas began appearing on billboards near its headquarters in New York and Times Square.
“Do you support humanitarian aid free of terror?” read one of the ads, while another said, “Paychecks to terrorists or humanitarian aid?”
In a statement published on their website on Wednesday, UNRWA said the campaign is the “latest global effort by a UN member state to label a UN agency as a terror organisation” that “may amount to hate speech”.
“This campaign is creating immense reputational damage to UNRWA,” the agency wrote.
“These ads can put the lives of UNRWA personnel at serious risk.”
The organisation also called for regulations to “control the spread of such damaging and possibly dangerous messages”.
The head of the digital department at Israel’s Foreign Ministry and Deputy Director General for Public Diplomacy, David Saranga, responded to the statement by showing an alleged UNRWA worker participating in the 7 October attacks.
“UNRWA has lost legitimacy and can no longer function as a U.N. body,” Saranga wrote on X.
Israel’s official X account also weighed in, saying: “You’ve done enough reputational damage on your own by literally employing hundreds of terrorists.”
Sources in the ministry told Ynet that there was no intention of halting the campaign, which had reportedly reached millions within two days.
The sources say the goal of the campaign is to “amplify the campaign’s content and reach, aiming to convince decision-makers of the need to find an alternative to the aid agency, whose many members are reportedly involved in terrorist activities, as demonstrated in the events of October 7”.
Israel has long accused the organisation of affiliations with Hamas with no evidence to back up its claims.
It has claimed that 12 UNRWA staff members had directly or indirectly participated in the 7 October attack.
The accusations caused 16 Western countries to freeze their funding to the organisation, affecting the 87 percent of Palestinians who are dependent on its services. UNRWA is the largest provider of aid to the Palestinians, including throughout Israel’s most recent onslaught.
While some states have resumed their contributions to UNRWA, it has not stopped the Israeli state from moving to formally designate the organisation as “terrorist” group.
If the law is passed, Israel could openly target UNRWA facilities and its staff, destroying the agency’s ability to continue its aid to Palestinians as famine looms in the Strip.
Israel has long opposed the operations of UNRWA, which was established after the 1948 expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland to make way for the creation of Israel.
The Knesset has approved two bills banning UNRWA from Israel and limiting it in Gaza and the West Bank.
A total of 251 UNRWA staff have been killed since Israel’s current war on Gaza, while two-thirds of its buildings in Gaza have been hit many directly or several times, according to the agency.
