The federal Liberals have donated $27 million Canadian taxpayer dollars to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) since learning that some of their staff were involved in the 2023 October 7 terrorist attack against Israel.
The admission comes from a response to an order paper question submitted by Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman.
Since 2016, Canada has disbursed a total of $285 million to UNRWA, $45 million of which came in 2023, and $27 million in 2024.
In February, the federal Conservatives voted against Canada funding the UNRWA from providing humanitarian support to Gaza after at least 12 UNRWA employees were accused of being Hamas terrorists who participated in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
After these allegations surfaced, the Liberals temporarily paused their funding to the UNRWA, but quickly unpaused it before their next payment was due, after the UN released an interim report on the matter that provided little to vague conclusions about the allegations. In effect, the Liberals didn’t reduce their donations to UNRWA by one taxpayer dollar.
UNRWA confirmed the dismissal of several employees after the allegations. By August 5, 2024, the UN announced that an internal investigation conducted by the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) concluded that nine UNRWA staff members “may have” been involved in the attack. The UN’s investigation was ongoing at the time of these announcements.
On Monday, Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, sent a final request to Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, to discuss a “new trove of evidence” that allegedly shows UNRWA officials’ complicity with Hamas terrorists.
Neuer mentions previous attempts to meet with UNRWA officials, which were unsuccessful.
He has publicly appealed multiple times for a meeting, including on several dates in November 2024. Neuer states that if there is no response by Wednesday, November 20, 2024, UN Watch will begin releasing the evidence to the public.
