The UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) was created one year after the 2003 suicide bombing in Baghdad that killed 22 UN staff, including the organization’s representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
UNDSS is currently led by an Under Secretary-General (Gilles Michaud). He is responsible for the safety, security, and well-being of personnel and the security of United Nations premises per the United Nations Security Management System (UNSMS).
Israel has killed more than 130 Palestinian local staff of UNRWA since October 7th.
As the Secretary-General said, ‘This is the largest single loss of life in the history of our organization.’
The UNRWA Commissioner-General (CG) and Spokesperson insist on their side of the story that “No Place is Safe in Gaza.”
It is widely accepted that the immoral, indiscriminate bombing by Israel renders the Gaza Strip unsafe. However, that version disguises in reality the failures of the UN Security Management System (UNSMS), those of the Secretary-General and the UNRWA CG.
On December 8th, the Secretary-General told the Security Council:
More than 130 of my colleagues have already been killed, many with their families.
This is the largest single loss of life in the history of our Organization.
Some of our staff take their children to work so they know they will live or die together.
Colleagues have shared heartbreaking messages from staff members pleading for help.
The Under-Secretary-General of the Department of Safety and Security has advised me that all possible means of mitigating the risk to staff within Gaza, short of evacuation, are closed off, because of the way this conflict has evolved.
The last sentence is not true at all. Either the Secretary-General is concealing the shortcomings of his senior management, or he is receiving misleading information.
How can the USG/DSS advise on possible means of mitigating the risk to staff within Gaza when the UNRWA Palestinian local staff were never included in the UN Security Management System?
Mr. Secretary General,
It is not true that there are no ways to mitigate the risk to staff within Gaza. There were possible means, but they were not implemented.
This is because UNRWA Palestinian local staff are systemically and unfairly excluded from the UN Security Management System that applies to all UN staff worldwide.
Mr. USG/DSS,
On 19 October 2023, a few days after the Gaza war started, you presented your report on behalf of the SG entitled “Safety and security of humanitarian personnel and protection of United Nations personnel” to the General Assembly.
On page 12 of that report, (Section 2) footnote 9 reads:
“9. United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) area personnel are not covered by the United Nations security management system. “
Here it is.
Presented before the General Assembly.
In your own words and those of the Secretary-General:
The UN Security Management System does not cover UNRWA Palestinian local staff.
This practice conflicts with Chapter III of the UN Security Policy Manual, which states that the policies apply to
“All United Nations system staff members, including temporary staff, in posts subject to international or local recruitment.”
Under the UNSMS, the UNRWA local staff should have been relocated to a safe haven within the duty station (base of International staff currently in Gaza).
They were not, hence the large number of UNRWA Palestinian fatalities.
Under this system, UNRWA should have immediately carried out a head count of the Palestinian local staff. They were unable to do so, and there was none.
There are no possible means of mitigation risk for UNRWA local staff due to the failures of the entire UN senior leadership to include those staff under the UNSMS.
On Tuesday, 21 November 2023, UNRWA CG, addressing the Advisory Committee of the Agency, stated
“…regarding the exclusion of national staff from insurance coverage… he stated that this issue was closely analyzed to see if it could be addressed and that it would have enormous cost implications if it was applied to the Agency, given that most expenses were covered by extrabudgetary resources.” (excerpt from official minutes of the meeting).
There it is in plain words.
UNRWA Palestinian lives are cheaper than the rest of the UN staff, which may explain why the UN didn’t find it fitting to explore measures to mitigate risk for those staff.
Who is liable for this discrimination?
Who will be accountable for those failures?
The UN System is structured to discriminate national and international staff. Field offices cannot function without national staff and yet the difference in benefits is appalling. National Staff must form staff unions (not staff associations that arrange Christmas parties and print T-shirts and coffee mugs) that take up management in advocating for their equal rights. National staff don’t know what they don’t know and suffer a Stockholm Syndrome. What is the difference that they get under the malicious acts insurance? Is this information ever made public ?