Even though the United Nations now admits its own repeated bungling in one-sided accusations against the State of Israel, one should not expect a new era of fairness. Most recently, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) falsely accused Israel of targeting its school in the Gaza Strip during the recent Gaza War with Hamas, which was prompted by the terrorist organization’s multiple rocket barrages at Israeli towns.

On Jan. 6, went the U.N. version of events, Israeli mortars hit an UNRWA school in Jabaliya, killing 43 civilians seeking shelter. John Ging, UNRWA’s Gaza operations director, accused Israel of deliberately carrying out a “horrific” attack and claimed that Israel knew it was targeting a U.N. facility. UNRWA’s leadership decried Israeli “atrocities” that may be “war crimes.” A week later, investigations showed the number of dead at 21 and that the UNRWA school was not hit. Any death is tragic and cannot be shirked off. More recently, the number has plunged even lower. Likewise, blaming innocent parties for those deaths and inflaming already boiling passions is inexcusable.

For the record, recently the U.N. humanitarian coordinator issued a clarification “that the shelling, and all of the fatalities, took place outside rather than inside the school.” It garnered an infinitesimal amount of coverage when compared to the original accusations.

That all prompted American Jewish Congress Acting Co-Executive Director Matthew Mark Horn to respond, “As was the case with U.N. reports of massacres in Jenin in 2002, these latest accusations reflect a willingness to enlist in a propaganda war against Israel with no regard for the facts.”
His organization called for the U.N. “to draw the appropriate conclusions about the serious accusations.”

Perhaps the UNRWA was too busy to do that. On Feb. 2, it announced the suspension of its humanitarian aid in Gaza. That was to protest Hamas’s seizure of UNRWA’S warehouses, which included the theft of 200 tons of food and supplies. Hamas returned the stolen property and the UNRWA aid program restarted. Of course, there was no international outcry – as would have surely followed had Israel done the same.

Neil, Thank you for the enlightening information about the truth of the matter regarding the UNRWA school shelling. As you know, I read the Baltimore Sun front to back each and every morning, and for days, more like weeks, there were outraged stories and letters on the subject. Gee, I somehow missed these updated numbers and statements…Light For All
HMMMM….maybe not?..............Dave Cluster