The head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unwra) has denied any knowledge that Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, an employee of the agency recently killed in an Israeli strike in Lebanon, was a Hamas commander.
“The specific allegation at the time was that he was part of the local leadership… I never heard the word commander before,” Philippe Lazzarini stated.
“What’s obvious for you today was not obvious yesterday,” he told reporters in Geneva.
However, on 30 September the NGO UN Watch said: “The UN cannot say that they didn’t know. Again and again, we urged UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini to fire al-Sharif. We gave them a huge dossier with the evidence.”
Executive Director Hillel Neuer issued the following comment: “Just yesterday, I wrote to Lazzarini on Twitter: ‘Every day that you refuse to fire Fathi al-Sharif confirms your open support for terrorism.’ And I re-sent him the dossier.
“Everyone at UNRWA knew. Yet they refused to act.
“Even as school principal al-Sharif openly incited terrorism on social media for over a decade, UNRWA did nothing. They failed to fire or even condemn their school principal for being a Hamas terror chief. Only this year, after UN Watch mobilized international pressure, did they finally slap him on the wrist with a suspension — while for months insisting that that they were conducting “an investigation.”
“Yet al-Sharif was openly promoting Hamas terrorism, including on his Facebook page, and the Lebanese media reported that he was a top Hamas official. UNRWA’s “investigation” was a sham.”
UN Watch called on Lazzarini to resign.
[Photo: Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin/Un Watch]