Israel called for UNRWA’s closure Wednesday, as its commissioner-general, Pierre Krähenbuhl, resigned amid a UN probe into ethical misconduct allegations against him and other top officials in the organization tasked with providing humanitarian assistance to 5.5 million Palestinian refugees.
This "is a victory in the campaign against the politicization and incitement against Israel that is at the root of the agency [UNRWA]," Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said. "Compounding this, numerous accusations regarding the agency’s conduct signals to the international community that there is no other solution for UNRWA besides its total closure, and it is time to consider alternative models for the refugee issue."
Earlier in the day, the UN said that its Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) found "management issues which relate specifically to the commissioner-general," but did not clarify what those were.
UN spokesman Stephan Dujarric said that with respect to Krähenbuhl, the OIOS’s job was completed and that it had submitted a report to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that would be studied.
"The fact that Krähenbuhl has resigned impacts whatever decisions the secretary-general will have made, but the content of the report will be studied and will be studied very carefully, to make sure that there are lessons learned," he told reporters in New York.
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