UN agency accuses Israel of detaining, coercing staffers into false confessions about ties to Hamas | CNN
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The UN agency for Palestinian refugees Monday accused Israel of detaining and torturing some of its staffers, coercing them into making false confessions about the agency’s ties to Hamas.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees on Monday accused Israel of detaining and torturing some of its staffers, coercing them into making false confessions about the agency’s ties to Hamas.

“Some of our staff have conveyed to UNRWA teams that they were forced to (make) confessions under torture and ill-treatment. These false confessions were in response to questioning about relations between UNRWA and Hamas and involvement in the 7 October attack against Israel,” UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma said in a statement.

Israel has accused at least 12 staffers from the UN Relief and Works Agency of being involved in the October 7 terrorist attacks and has alleged that about 12% of UNRWA’s 13,000 staffers are members of Hamas or other Palestinian militant groups. Israeli officials have said some of the information about the 12 staffers involved in October 7 was obtained through cell phone data and other sources. UNRWA says it has fired 10 of the 12 accused staffers and that the other two are dead. CNN cannot confirm the allegations.

  • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    136·
    9 months ago

    Nice.

    This article reminds me of when the IDF kidnapped staff members and even directors of hospitals and tortured them into confessing that their hospital was a “Hamas base”

    It took even longer for the families, friends, and colleagues of Mohammed Al-Ran, a general surgeon at Kamal Adwan Hospital, to see him again. The physician was forcibly disappeared by the IOF and tortured for 46 days. He was recently released, naked, at the Karem Abu Salem crossing.

    The surgeon originally chose to stay back at the hospital with a handful of other health staff and patients as the complex was evacuated. Then, the IOF threatened that they would bomb and destroy the whole hospital if Al-Ran did not surrender to them, recounted Bilal Azzam, a member of the Jordanian Medical Syndicate, during a first round of discussions on the rebuilding of the health system in Gaza.

    He shared detention with other kidnapped Palestinian health workers, including Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital. Of Abu Salmiya, Azzam said the IOF broke both of his hands and forced him to walk on all fours. “They put a chain around his neck and dragged him in front of people, and when they wanted to feed him, they brought him a plate and told him to eat like a dog.”