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Israeli MP Sharren Haskel has made the startling claim Australian taxpayers are “paying the salary” of members from terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah following fresh revelations regarding the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency.
New links to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees have emerged after the killing of a top Hamas commander in Lebanon earlier this week, who has been uncovered as a suspended employee of an UNRWA-run school.
Fateh Sharif Abu El-Amin, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Monday along with his wife and daughter, was placed under investigation and suspended from his job in March after concerns emerged regarding his politics, UNRWA’s chief Philippe Lazzarini revealed at a media conference.
However Lazzarini has denied knowing Abu El-Amin was a Hamas commander, saying, “I never heard the word commander before. What’s obvious for you today, was not obvious yesterday.”
The Australian government in August faced scathing criticism over its decision to continue funding to UNRWA despite there being sufficient evidence nine of the agency’s staff had links to the October 7 Hamas attack.
In light of the new revelations this week, Ms Haskel argued the Australian government had been warned “for years” about UNRWA’s alleged links to terrorism.
“There are thousands of terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah who are on the paycheque of Australian taxpayers’ money. They are paying the salary of those terrorists,” Ms Haskel told Sky News host Sharri Markson on Tuesday night.
She said it was “very simple” for the federal government to check who the terrorist activists working with the agency were, through requesting a list of employees from the United Nations.
“If they just cross them, they know exactly who is a terrorist, but they just ignore it. It’s very easy to ignore the facts. It’s very easy to ignore the truth when you don’t want to accept it. But they know it, they’ve known it for years,” she said.
