The UN is refusing to address the findings of an investigation into UNRWA management’s ties to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, on grounds that the 50-page report was revealed in the media instead of being sent directly to the UN.
“We’re not going to respond to yet another report from UN Watch,” UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told reporters in a Tuesday briefing, saying the world body’s officials “appreciate information being given to us directly, instead of done through the media.”
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental organization, said he was “astonished at the audacity of the UN’s stance.”
“The UN spokesman claims they won’t respond to our report because we didn’t provide the evidence to them beforehand. Yet that is exactly what we have been trying to do these past few months, in
repeated letters and
appeals requesting to meet.”
“We urge Western donor states to take note that our
new report reveals how UNRWA
Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini regularly meets with the leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups, and yet by contrast he has systematically declined
our requests to meet,” Neuer said.
“I urged to meet with him ahead of his visit to Geneva on June 25, and his visit to Lausanne on August 1. I was right next to him on both occasions, yet he refused to to receive our evidence of UNRWA terror ties. Neither would he meet with me in New York in November, despite our repeated public appeals for him to receive our dossier. UNRWA won’t respond to our letters and emails, and pressures groups to disinvite me from panels where they appear.”
“The audacity of the UN in refusing to respond to our detailed report, while dismissing our efforts to engage directly, is staggering,” Neuer added. “It’s a shameful abdication of accountability, especially given the serious nature of the allegations.”
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