International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, Dec. 11, 2002

Israel’s Shin Bet secret service has presented a classified document to the government outlining terrorist use of UN facilities in the disputed territories. The disclosure, likely to add more fuel to the already tempestuous relationship between Israel and UNRWA – the UN’s Palestinian aid arm, comes only weeks after IDF troops shot and killed one of the organization’s senior British workers by mistake.

According to Israeli officials, the report was prepared long before UNRWA worker Iain Hook died from Israeli sniper fire amidst clashes between soldiers and Palestinian gunmen in Jenin in November.

In response to Hook’s death, however, the IDF has come under international pressure to hold a full investigation, the results of which are due to be passed to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan within the next few days. The timing of the disclosure has added to speculation that the report has been made public to deflect criticism from the IDF stemming from the incident.

In the document, the security forces say captured Palestinian suspects have hinted at the widespread use UNRWA facilities, including social clubs, schools, and ambulances, both to hide terrorists and aid terror activity.

According to the report, Nidal Nazal, an UNRWA ambulance driver arrested in July, admitted that his ambulance was used to transport ammunition between terror cells. Other detainees admitted that UNRWA vehicles were used by terrorists on their way to attacks.

The claims of the document are not new. Israeli Foreign Ministry lawyer Alan Baker took the case of misuse of UNRWA facilities to the US in June, arguing that the camps UNRWA operates contained weapons factories and terrorist training camps.

Baker told reporters at the time that Israel expects UNRWA to ensure that their camps "fulfill the humanitarian function... and not the opposite." Israeli officials said the information contained in the Shin Bet report is being put to use in discussions with UNRWA and the US Congress regarding the organizations' activities.

The UNRWA humanitarian aid agency, which has been operating in the territories since 1949, with the express purpose of helping those families that fled from Israel as a result of the 1948 Arab invasion and subsequent war of independence, is a source of controversy in Israel. After more than 53 years it remains the only formal agency in the world designed to aid "refugees" by maintaining their refugee status.

While Israel absorbed millions of Jewish refugees fleeing Europe after the Holocaust and around 800,000, forcibly evicted from neighboring Arab states after 1948, the 650,000 Arabs that voluntarily left Israel for Jordan in 1948 have never been welcomed or assimilated anywhere else. UNRWA will not seek their resettlement outside Israel under the basis that it would be "unacceptable" to them. In the intervening period, however, their numbers have mushroomed with the highest recorded birth-rate in the world.