Israelis who were taken hostage or lost loved ones during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack are suing the United Nations agency that aids Palestinians.
FILE - A woman and her children walk past a wall with photographs of hostages who were kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas cross-border attack in Israel, Feb. 26, 2024, in Jerusalem. On Monday, June 24, Israelis who were taken hostage or lost loved ones during the attack filed suit against the United Nations agency that aids Palestinians, claiming it has helped finance the militants by paying agency staffers in U.S.
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said Tuesday that he learned of the case only through the media. But the suit also focuses on the agency's practice of paying its 13,000 Gaza staffers in U.S. dollars. The money is wired from a bank in New York and trucked into Gaza, according to the legal complaint, which says the payroll totaled at least $20 million a month from 2018 until last September.
The suit claims that Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007, “runs the majority” of the currency exchangers and extracts a 10% to 25% fee from the rest, “ensuring that a predictable percentage of UNRWA’s payroll went to Hamas" in dollars useful for black-market weapons deals. UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma said in a message to the AP that Gaza staffers asked that “they are paid in US$ because Gaza does not have an official national currency.”
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