Top Hamas commander killed in Lebanon was UNRWA employee placed on administrative leave

GENEVA -- The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said a top Hamas commander killed in Lebanon Monday was one of its employees but had been suspended since allegations of his ties to the militant group emerged in March.

Fatah Sharif's connection to Hamas appeared set to ratchet up pressure on UNRWA, already facing a $80 million funding shortfall this year. Critics have repeatedly blasted the agency, saying it wasn’t doing enough to root out Hamas militants from its ranks.

The U.N.’s internal watchdog has been investigating UNRWA since Israel in January accused 12 of its staffers of being involved in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which armed militants killed 1,200 people and abducted some 250 others. The allegations led more than a dozen donor countries to suspend their funding, causing an initial cash crunch of about $450 million dollars. Since then, all donor countries except for the United States have decided to resume funding the agency.

Hamas said Sharif was killed with his wife, son and daughter in an airstrike on Al-Buss refugee camp, one of 12 dedicated to Palestinian refugees in the country, in the southern port city of Tyre. The Israeli military confirmed it had targeted him.

Sharif was not open about his affiliation with the group and its armed wing.

Israel has previously alleged the UNRWA has been infiltrated by the Palestinian militant group.

Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva posted on X saying that Hamas announced Sharif's death, "And guess what was the second job of Mr Sharif? He was a principal, head of @UNRWA teachers association in Lebanon.”

The mission added: “This case proves that there is a deep problem in @UNRWA, the way they do due diligence about who they are hiring.”

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said he learned in March of allegations that Sharif had been a “member of the political party of Hamas” and decided to suspend him and launch an investigation “from day one.”

Lazzarini said he hadn't heard Sharif might be a Hamas “commander" until Monday.

“So he was suspended, had no function, was not paid and was under investigation," Lazzarini told reporters in Geneva. "We are still an agency with due process — I mean, respecting due process and the principle of rule of law. So the investigation was ongoing.”

Lazzarini said he had received a letter from Israeli authorities listing the names of some 100 people allegedly linked to Hamas, and he took it “very seriously.” But he said Israeli authorities never responded to UNRWA requests for more information so that it might launch investigations into those cases.

“A list is not proof of anything,” he said.

A Hamas statement praised Sharif for his “educational and jihadist work” and called him “a successful teacher and an outstanding principal” for generations of Palestinian refugees.

The UNRWA teachers’ union and other Palestinian groups had periodically staged protests in front of the U.N. agency's office in Beirut since Sharif’s suspension, alleging it targeted him for his political stances. Earlier this month, the union staged a sit-in during a visit to Lebanon by Lazzarini, saying it awaited “positive and fair outcomes” in the case of his suspension.

Israel has been sharply critical of UNRWA and Lazzarini's leadership of it.

In July, David Mencer, a spokesman in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, called the longtime Swiss diplomat "one of the bad guys, a terrorist sympathizer, a Jew-killing enabler, a liar.”

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric responded by saying the comments were “reprehensible” and threatening.

UNRWA has 32,000 staff in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinian territories, including 13,000 in Gaza who provide education, health care, food and other services to several million Palestinians and their families.

Its facilities in Gaza, where thousands of Palestinians have sought shelter, have been repeatedly attacked. Lazzarini said 223 UNRWA staffers have been killed in Gaza during the war, a toll that the United Nations says is the highest ever in a single conflict for employees of the world body.

The Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed 41,615, according to the Gaza Health Ministry which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.

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Associated Press Writer Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.