ECAJ calls for UNRWA funding cut
ECAJ has urged Australia to end funding to UNRWA after 70 staff were dismissed over alleged Hamas links.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) has called on the government to cut its $20 million annual funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) after it fired 70 workers with alleged links to Hamas.
UNRWA did not refer to Hamas in its statement about the sacking.
“The dismissal of the staff is not part of a disciplinary process and does not constitute in any way a validation of the claims made against them,” the Palestinian refugee agency said.
It followed findings by the US Agency for International Development which referred more than 100 current or former staff for suspension and dismissal for allegedly taking part in the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel or allegedly connected to Hamas.
It said those referred were “UNRWA school principals, teachers, security, counsellors and doctors”, including a schoolteacher with “expertise as a sniper for Hamas” and a school principal assigned to a “chemical department of a Hamas military manufacturing unit whose school had three anti-tank positions and a tunnel shaft located under the facility”.
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