UNRWA refutes Israeli implications of Hamas tunnel below Gaza HQ

The chief of the UN’s aid agency in Gaza has said that it had no knowledge of what was beneath its abandoned headquarters amid Israeli claims that a Hamas tunnel ran below the Gaza City site.

Philippe Lazzarini of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on X late on Saturday that the agency “did not know what is under its headquarters in Gaza”. Israel has previously accused UNRWA of colluding with Hamas’s military operations, prompting several donors to withdraw funding.

The UNRWA chief’s comments came after the Israeli army invited journalists to visit the tunnel. The Israeli military did not provide definitive proof that Hamas fighters operated at the location, but showed that at least a portion of the tunnel system ran underneath the courtyard of the aid agency’s headquarters.