UK Media Condemned for Peddling ‘Unverified’ Israeli Intelligence which Helped Trigger Huge Aid Cuts to Gaza 

Several major UK media outlets, including The Sun and the Daily Mail, promoted unverified Israeli intelligence reports claiming that one in ten workers at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza had ties to militant groups. 

Such reports were a major factor in the suspension of critical UNRWA funding by the UK and a dozen other countries in the immediate aftermath, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, NGOs say. 

On January 29th, The Sun was among outlets to pick up the story from its fellow Murdoch-owned paper the Wall Street Journal, based on Israeli intelligence sources. The Sun story led with: “AID ALERT ‘10 per cent’ of staff in UN’s Palestinian refugee agency ‘have ties to violent Islamist groups.’” 

On the same day, MailOnline, the website for the Daily Mail, ran a piece stating: “At least 190 UNRWA staff are Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives, Israel claims, as the UN aid agency says UK and US decision to halt funding ‘will have serious repercussions in Gaza’.”

“The six-page [Israeli] dossier…alleges that some 190 UNRWA employees, including teachers, have doubled as Hamas or Islamic Jihad militants. It has names and pictures for 11 them.”

In other words, the Israeli intelligence briefing, cited in the news report, named only six per cent of those UNRWA workers it claimed were Hamas or Islamic jihad terrorists.

On February 2nd, the US site of the Daily Mail also ran with the Wall Street Journal story, suggesting that: “One in ten workers at UN agency given $1.3BN of cash every year to provide assistance to Palestine is a member of Hamas or Jihad group – and half have a close relative who’s a militant, Israeli intelligence claims”.

“The same report says half of UNRWA staff has a militant close relative,” the Mail’s piece claimed. At least one more piece using the WSJ report followed. 

Months after it broke the story in January alleging one in ten of the circa 13,000 UNRWA staff working in Gaza had links to terrorist organisations, the Wall Street Journal has now admitted that it has been unable to independently verify or confirm the claims. 

While the Wall Street Journal has not disowned its story, the admission it has not been able to verify the intelligence reports raises questions for UK media outlets which parroted the narrative from Israeli military sources, undermining the UN agency. 

The US-based outlet Semafor reported this Monday: “One of the [Wall Street Journal’s] biggest and most impactful stories about the war was based on information it could not verify…[It] is a startling acknowledgement, and calls into question the validity of the claims as reported in the Journal. The piece had major reverberations internally and raised serious concerns among some staff.

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“According to three people familiar with the situation, since the story was published earlier this year, reporters have tried and failed to corroborate the 10% claim at the center of the story. Journalists working on the Middle East coverage for the Journal have also since raised concerns about elements of the paper’s coverage of the war more broadly that some feel tip too heavily toward Israel.”

After the January story was published, the US Government promptly froze funds to UNRWA, followed by more than a dozen countries, including the UK and Germany, stalling a total of $450 million in aid.

It took Labour being elected in July for funds to be restored by the UK, after having starved the UN aid agency of cash for months of the humanitarian crisis. 

Jonathan Purcell, Senior Public Affairs and Communications Officer at ICJP, strongly condemned the media’s role in perpetuating these unverified claims. 

He told Byline Times: “UNRWA was already chronically underfunded and at the time where it was needed most, it had its legs cut out from under it.”

“The countries that cut UNRWA funding on baseless smears must accept the role they played in worsening starvation in Gaza, but so too must the news outlets that pedalled Israel’s unsubstantiated claims without upholding their own journalistic standards. 

“Time and time again, Israel has spun a web of untruths to make excuses for its genocide in Gaza and its the role of the press to shine a light on these rather than to play along,” Purcell added. 

And Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, told this newspaper that many of the original claims were based on hearsay: “The Americans still haven’t restored funding because they panicked. They needed to make sure none of their money was going into a situation seen to be sponsoring those involved in attacks.

“The easiest option was to cut funding. But they were more concerned with their reputation than the risk of diminishing UNRWA’s capabilities at a time of acute humanitarian emergency. It was a wrong-headed and wrong decision from day one.”

Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, echoed his comments, saying: “Israel’s war crimes in Gaza have been accompanied by the most blatant lying which sadly large parts of our political class seem happy to amplify. 

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“This has had predictable repercussions, creating confusion around Israel’s actions, preventing accountability and, in this case, cutting funds to Gaza’s most important source of humanitarian aid when they needed it most.”

He called for parts of the media and Government to “reflect on how playing along with these lies is another form of complicity in Israel’s war crimes.”

UNRWA, the main conduit for aid to the region, has been left struggling to provide essential services to the Palestinian refugees who rely on their support.

“Our coverage of UNRWA is part of a long reporting effort on the war in Gaza that involves staffers across the newsroom,” a Wall Street Journal spokesperson told the outlet Semafor. 

They added: “Trying to get more information is what good reporters do, and we have the best in the business. We’ve reported on this topic thoroughly and comprehensively. We stand by our January story on Israel’s 10% claim, and we stand by the many stories that have followed.”

The Sun and the Daily Mail have been contacted for comment, as has UNRWA. 

An investigation released by the United Nations on Monday night (5th August) found that nine UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the October 7th attacks on Israel. All have already been dismissed. It is not clear how many of them are still alive.

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