Israeli intelligence supplied to Canada included biographies of militant UNRWA workers, maps of Hamas services close to camps and below faculties
Article content material
Biographies of UN workers who took half within the Oct. 7 bloodbath in Israel.
Satellite tv for pc photographs of Gaza faculties constructed atop buried terrorist bunkers.
Article content material
Hamas rocket launchers put in inside metres of marked United Nations compounds.
That is only a portion of the Israeli intelligence that Canada had entry to when the Liberal authorities selected March 8 to renew funding the United Nations Reduction and Works Company for Palestine Refugees within the Close to East (UNRWA). International Affairs Canada introduced the choice regardless of a number of different nations, together with the USA, opting to attend till the conclusion of a UN investigation earlier than making any choices on resuming funding that they had additionally paused after allegations from Israel of hyperlinks between UNRWA and the Oct. 7 terror assaults led.
Commercial 2
Article content material
Nationwide Put up was granted unique media entry to the intelligence given to the Trudeau authorities — a file spelling out Israel’s case for Canada to completely cease sending tax {dollars} to the controversial UN company.
After allegations in January of UNRWA members taking lively roles within the Oct. 7 bloodbath, the USA introduced a briefly funding halt.
Canada and quite a few different nations adopted go well with, however Ottawa reversed course two months later, in time to ship this yr’s $25-million installment of a $100-million funding pledge to UNRWA made final yr by the Trudeau Liberals.
In distinction, the large appropriations package deal handed by the U.S. Congress late final month included a statutory ban on funding UNRWA till March 2025.
Japan, Australia, Finland and Sweden have additionally resumed their funding.
The intelligence briefing proven to Nationwide Put up included 43 slides laying out a complete file of proof, together with data gathered from communications of Hamas operatives, social media, and video of the Oct. 7 assault. A few of it bore the emblem of iNet, the Israeli operation that synthesizes open-source intelligence for the state’s defence institution.
Commercial 3
Article content material
In keeping with the intelligence — which Israeli diplomatic officers confirmed to the Put up was made out there to the Canadian authorities earlier than March 8 — Hamas views UNRWA as a pillar of its civil rule offering the help that permits it to place better concentrate on its army and terrorism applications.
“Hamas is deeply and systematically embedded in UNRWA,” the briefing states.
“Hamas members serve in all sectors of UNRWA actions, together with in key positions.”
That’s a conclusion shared by many Israeli politicians and stakeholders.
Iddo Moed, Israel’s ambassador to Canada, questioned why funding was resumed given the abundance of proof connecting UNRWA with a bunch formally categorised as a terrorist group.
“We’re not satisfied that Canada used the data that we supplied in a approach that may put UNRWA in a special gentle than earlier than. It’s as if nothing occurred,” he stated.
“Even when we acquired the message that Canada believes UNRWA must be reformed, our conviction is that UNRWA must be reformed instantly and utterly. As a company, it’s change into a bottleneck that’s a part of the issue, not the answer.”
First Studying
Article content material
Commercial 4
Article content material
UNRWA’s supporters insist it’s a mandatory welfare company in Gaza and the West Financial institution. The UN has handled Palestinians as refugees since Israel was established 76 years in the past. However many Israelis see funding for UNRWA from nations like Canada as facilitating additional assaults towards Israel.
Really useful from Editorial
-
Canada’s UNRWA funding pause was a very long time coming, observers say
-
Ottawa is being sued for restoring UNRWA funding by survivors of terror victims
“For years I’ve had conferences in western capitals, I’ve been to Ottawa and met with Canadian officers in Israel many instances, and I inform them ‘you get to really feel excellent about your self, even very smug for giving cash to supposedly the poor Palestinians, however what you’re actually funding is the continuation and perpetuation of the century-long Palestinian conflict towards the Jewish state,” stated Einat Wilf, an Israeli politician and former Knesset member, in a earlier dialog with this newspaper.
“And when you sit there comfortably in Ottawa, my persons are going to pay for it in blood.”
The Israeli UNRWA file means that as many as 2,135 UNRWA workers are members of Palestinian terror organizations — greater than three-quarters of them belonging to Hamas.
Of these, 327 are within the Al-Qassam Brigades — Hamas’s army wing.
The file additionally accommodates over a dozen biographies of UNRWA workers who allegedly participated within the Oct. 7 that killed roughly 1,200 folks in Israel, the overwhelming majority of them civilians.
Commercial 5
Article content material
They embody Faisal Ali Mussallem Al-Naimi, an UNRWA social employee captured on surveillance video eradicating the physique of Yonatan Samerano from Kibbutz Beeri.
Hafez Mousa Mousa, a 42-year-old UNRWA faculty principal, allegedly moonlights in Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades.
Israel’s intelligence alleges he closed his faculty shortly earlier than the assaults on Oct. 7 and notified fellow Hamas operatives to muster close to the Gaza border.
Eighteen UNRWA faculty principals in Gaza are recognized by Israel as alleged fight militants for Hamas.
Israeli officers stated that whereas Hamas’s affect over UNRWA was frequent information, it wasn’t till the Oct. 7 assaults that the complete scale of the infiltration got here to gentle.
“Whereas we gathered intelligence on Hamas, an increasing number of hyperlinks to UNRWA got here up,” a senior Israeli diplomatic supply, who spoke on the situation of anonymity, instructed the Nationwide Put up.
“The issue is that Hamas infiltrated into the ranks of UNRWA in a scientific method, in a approach that Hamas perceived UNRWA as a strategic asset.”
He stated that UNRWA’s assertions that militant workers are merely a couple of unhealthy apples don’t maintain water.
Commercial 6
Article content material
“If UNRWA won’t acknowledge that there’s a drawback, it is going to be not possible to repair it,” the supply stated.
“As a result of the infiltration is so vast, we consider it’s past restore, and we don’t need to see the continuation of the exercise of UNRWA within the Gaza Strip.”
To fill the hole, the supply stated Israel has been offering Gaza with humanitarian assist, however a lot of that’s nonetheless being intercepted and seized by Hamas.
“Not all the humanitarian assist reached the civilians, Hamas was making an attempt to make use of this assist for its personal functions,” he stated.
Hamas is thought for utilizing civilians as human shields in Gaza, putting rocket launchers, command posts and different strategic targets amongst and even inside faculties, mosques and hospitals.
Israeli intelligence has uncovered at the least 32 UNRWA services inside 20 metres of Hamas installations in Gaza.
A tunnel beneath the UNRWA-run Maghazi Prep College B in central Gaza was found in 2017, whereas the bunker beneath the UNRWA-run Zaitoun Prep College B was present in 2022.
The principals of each faculties — Khaled Mentioned el Masri and Mohammed Shuwaideh — additionally moonlight as Hamas militants, Israel alleges.
Commercial 7
Article content material
Regardless of UNRWA’s condemnation and guarantees to fill the tunnels, Israel maintains they’re nonetheless in use.
Maps present arms warehouses, tunnel entry factors and logistical centres positioned adjoining to UN-run faculties, residences and services all through the Gaza Strip.
One satellite tv for pc picture depicted building of an underground bunker in 2010, with an up to date picture from final yr exhibiting an UNRWA faculty constructed overtop.
One other close to Rafah confirmed Hamas rocket launchers simply metres from a mosque and faculties, and all through close by UN refugee camps.
One more outlined Hamas’s intelligence headquarters and a pc server farm beneath UNRWA’s Gaza headquarters.
Hamas officers converse brazenly in regards to the significance of their tunnels and underground bunkers of their conflict towards Israel.
Mousa Abu Marzouk, deputy chair of the Hamas Political Bureau, instructed Russia As we speak in October that the Gaza tunnel system was designed to guard fighters and their infrastructure from Israeli counterattacks.
“Now we have constructed the tunnels as a result of we’ve got no different approach of defending ourselves from being focused and killed,” Marzouk stated when requested why Hamas didn’t additionally spend money on bomb shelters for Gazan civilians.
Commercial 8
Article content material
“These tunnels are supposed to defend us from the airplanes. We’re combating from contained in the tunnels. All people is aware of that 75 per cent of the folks within the Gaza Strip are refugees, and it’s the accountability of the United Nations to guard them.”
Nationwide Put up
bpassifiume@postmedia.com
Get extra deep-dive Nationwide Put up political protection and evaluation in your inbox with the Political Hack e-newsletter, the place Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s actually happening behind the scenes on Parliament Hill each Wednesday and Friday, solely for subscribers. Join right here.
Our web site is the place for the most recent breaking information, unique scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and join our newsletters right here.
Article content material
