Grisly footage has emerged for the first time to support Israel’s claim that UN staff took part in the October 7 attacks the left 1,200 people dead.
More than a dozen countries including the US and the UK suspended payments to the UN’s Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) at the end of January after Israel accused 12 agency staff of direct involvement in the Hamas-led assault.
Security film has now been released reportedly showing one, Faisal Ali Musalam Al-Naami, 45, loading a shot Israeli into his SUV and driving off.
The graphic images were taken near the entrance to the Kibbutz Beeri where more than 100 people were killed, just two miles from the Gaza border.
‘UNRWA has lost legitimacy and can no longer function as a UN body,’ Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant said.
Three Israelis had already been dragged from their car and shot when the white Toyota Terrano arrived at the entrance to the Kibbutz Beeri near Gaza early on October 7
The man is seen getting out of the SUV alongside a friend two miles inside Israel before the pair open the trunk door
Israel claims to have identified the man as UNRWA social worker Faisal Ali Musalam Al-Naami, 45
In the film a man alleged to be Al-Naami is seen stopping his white Nissan Terrano by the motionless bodies of three Israeli men who had earlier been dragged out of a car and shot.
A man emerges from Terrano’s passenger side carrying a semi-automatic machine gun before Al-Naami gets out and helps him clear a space in the back of the car.
The pair then grab one of the injured men between them and haul him into the SUV before covering his face with a blanket.
They then return to his belongings lying scattered across the bloodstained road, rifling through them before Al-Naami pockets a mobile phone.
They ignore the other two men entirely and are seen reversing away from the scene less than 90 seconds after arriving.
Al-Naami was among the 12 men named by Gallant for the first time on Friday but he said Israeli intelligence suggests up to 30 more may have taken part.
‘Out of 13,000 UNRWA workers, 12 per cent are affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)’, he said.
Israel claims that Al-Naami was a member of the Hamas brigade in his hometown of Nuseirat and had also transported weapons and trucks used in the October 7 attack
The footage shows the two men approaching an off-duty IDF soldier lying motionless in the road
The pair then grab either end of the injured man and carry him to the SUV where one covers his face with a blanket
Less than 90 seconds after arriving the pair reverse off and disappear to an unknown destination with the injured Israeli
Israel has also revealed details of a second UNRWA employee it claims took part in the October 7 attack by Hamas
‘One thousand four hundred and sixty-eight workers are known to be active in Hamas and PIJ.
‘One hundred and eighty-five UNRWA workers are active in the military branches of Hamas and 51 are active in the PIJ military branch,’ he added.
The agency was formed in 1948 to care for Palestinian refugees displaced during the war which established Israel as a state.
It is now the largest UN agency and recruits its staff overwhelmingly from the Palestinian population in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Naami was employed as a social worker according to a colleague who spoke to the Washington Post, while nine of the 12 worked in schools as teachers or counsellors according to Israel.
The agency is also the primary means of delivering aid to Gaza’s 2.3 million people, more than a quarter of which it reports are at imminent risk of starvation.
All of its schools and health centers have been converted into shelters for some of the 1.8million people displaced by Israel’s invasion.
All 12 named suspects were immediately sacked by the agency with UNRWA’s chief Philippe Lazzarini saying he could not afford to give them the benefit of the doubt.
‘My judgement, based on this going public, true or untrue, was I need to take the swiftest and boldest decision to show that as an agency we take this allegation seriously.’
Israel said Al-Naami was a member of the Hamas brigade in his hometown of Nuseirat and had also transported weapons and trucks used in the October 7 attack.
His UNRWA colleague said he was killed alongside his wife and five of his children in an Israeli airstrike on his home just nine days later.
‘His personality was calm, he was very cheerful, he was friendly, he was loved by everyone, colleagues, clients and beneficiaries,’ his colleague told The Post.
Israel said the wounded man was an IDF soldier and it is not known what became of him after he was carried into the SUV.
At least 28,775 people have been killed, mostly women and children, and 68,552 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Nearly three-quarters of the population is drinking from contaminated water sources and half is now crammed into the southern border city of Rafah as Israel prepares to assault the city.
Yoav Gallant, the former IDF general, (pictured) told a group of reporters at a briefing on Friday that roughly 12 percent of UNRWA staff were members of either Hamas or Islamic Jihad
People in Gaza inspect the damage to their homes following an Israeli air strike on Sunday
A Palestinian man is seen with his baby in front of the makeshift tents on Saturday as Palestinian families who left their homes and took shelter in Rafah city protect themselves from Israeli strikes
President Joe Biden warned Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu last week that an attack on the city ‘should not proceed without a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for the more than one million people sheltering there’.
But Washington said it would again veto this week’s expected UN security council resolution on a ceasefire.
Last night Netanyahu said those with concerns about an offensive in Rafah were telling the country to ‘lose the war’ against Hamas.
‘It’s true that there’s a lot of opposition abroad, but this is exactly the moment that we need to say that we won’t be doing a half or a third of the job,’ he insisted.