Employees of UNRWA in front of the agency's depot in Gaza City, April 28, 2025. (Credit: Omar al-Qattaa/AFP.)
The head of the U.N. Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) stated on Tuesday that over 50 of its employees have been arrested and treated "inhumanely" by Israel since the onset of the war in the Gaza Strip. UNRWA clarified that no arrested employees are currently detained by Israel.
Israel enforced a law prohibiting the U.N. subsidiary agency from operating on Israeli soil, after accusing some staff members of participating in the attack in Israel by the Palestinian movement Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the conflict.
Human shields
"Since the start of the war in October 2023, more than 50 UNRWA staff members, including teachers, doctors, and social workers, have been arrested and mistreated. They were treated in the most shocking and inhumane way possible," said Philippe Lazzarini on the social network X. "They reported being beaten and used as human shields. They suffered sleep deprivation, humiliations, threats of violence against them and their families, as well as attacks from dogs. Many were forced to make false confessions," he added. "It's simply appalling and outrageous," he emphasized.
“I wished for death to end the nightmare I was living through”.
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) April 29, 2025
Received this awful testimony from a colleague who was rounded up in #Gaza tortured while in Israeli detention and finally released.
For @UNRWA staff humanitarian duty is met with brutality.
Since the start of…
The Israeli army has not provided comments immediately. These remarks come following the opening of hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague dedicated to Israel's humanitarian obligations towards the Palestinians. The representative of the State of Palestine asserted that Israel uses the blockade of humanitarian aid as a "weapon of war" in Gaza.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar responded by denouncing a "systematic persecution" of Israel — which does not attend the hearings—and asserting that "it is the U.N. and UNRWA" that should be judged.
Israel controls the entry of international aid into the Gaza Strip, vital for the 2.4 million residents affected by an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Israeli authorities halted it on March 2, a few days before resuming a military offensive in the Palestinian territory after a two-month truce.