Berlin restores ties with UN agency after review says Israel has provided no evidence of terrorist links
Germany has said it will restore cooperation and funding to Unrwa operations in the Gaza Strip after an independent review said Israel had not provided evidence to back up claims that hundreds of employees of the UN agency for Palestinians were members of terrorist organisations., conducted by the former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, the German government would soon resume cooperation with the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees .
Colonna’s report, which was commissioned by the UN, found that Unrwa had regularly supplied Israel with lists of its employees for vetting, and that “the Israeli government has not informed Unrwa of any concerns relating to any Unrwa staff based on these staff lists since 2011”. In response to the report’s publication on Monday, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson, Oren Marmorstein, accused more than 2,135 Unrwa workers of being members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He said the Colonna review was insufficient and an “effort to avoid the problem and not address it head on”.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military said two reservist brigades had been mobilised for missions in Gaza. Video circulated online appeared to show rows of square white tents going up in the city of Khan Younis, 3 miles from Rafah. The Israel Defense Forces said last week it was acquiring 40,000 tents to prepare for the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians.
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