By Emma Farge
GENEVA, March 31 (Reuters) - Discussions are under way for a U.N. investigation into the killing of more than 390 employees in the two-year Gaza war, the head of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency said on Tuesday, making it the deadliest conflict in the global body's history.
"I believe that we need to have a panel – a high-level panel of experts to look into the killing of our staff," said Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner-General at a press conference in Geneva on the last day of his term.
The topic has been raised with the office of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and with member states in New York, he said.
"Part of the reason this has not (been) operationalised yet is there is still an ongoing conflict," he said, referring to Israel's continuing airstrikes in the enclave despite an October ceasefire that ended the Israel-Hamas war.
Asked to react, Israel's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva Daniel Meron challenged the agency's neutrality.
"Instead of preaching for accountability, Mr. Lazzarini should be held accountable for the systemic criminal failures under his tenure," he said, repeating Israeli allegations of UNRWA's ongoing ties to Hamas.
The United Nations has said that nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and were fired in 2024. The U.N. has vowed to investigate all accusations made of links to Hamas and has repeatedly asked Israel for evidence, which it says has not been provided.
More than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, according to local health officials, following an attack on Israel by Hamas-led gunmen in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities.
Delays in the implementing the second phase of a U.S. plan to end the Gaza war set to focus on disarming Hamas and an international security force were adding to Palestinians' misery, he said.
"People are still living in the rubble in Gaza, they are still queuing hours every day to have access to clean water," he said.
"It remains extremely grim, and the more the implementation of the next stage will be stalled, the more desperate people in Gaza will be."
He also voiced concerns that a so-called temporary 'yellow line' demarcating Israeli- and Hamas-controlled areas that is shutting Gazans out of about half of the crowded territory would endure.
Lazzarini, who will be replaced temporarily by Britain's Christian Saunders, warned earlier this month that his organisation's viability was in doubt and that any collapse would result in Israel taking over its humanitarian work.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Kate Mayberry, Arun Koyyur and Nick Zieminski)
