Report shows UNRWA targetted by pro-Israel online influencing operations

Washington DC: The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has been the focus of an online influence operation using fake social media profiles, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which cited a recent report from a disinformation watchdog.

An Israeli organisation called Fake Reporter, which tracks misinformation on the internet, discovered that the accounts repeated accusations made by the Israeli government regarding connections between the UN agency and Hamas, which were then disseminated through social media comments.

According to Haaretz, the study, which was only published in Hebrew, claims that the influence effort used three newly created "news websites" in addition to a network of hundreds of social media accounts to spread pro-Israel stories.

However, the influence campaign has directed its attention towards UNRWA, a group that assists Palestinian refugees, in recent weeks.

According to the study, in response to posts made by US lawmakers and Western media, the fake accounts have been using screenshots of a Wall Street Journal article that purports to establish links between the UN agency and Hamas, Al Jazeera reported.

“The people targeted the most with such comments by the campaign’s avatars were American politicians, specifically the social media accounts of Democratic lawmakers, and accounts considered pro-Israel,” the Haaretz article reads.

“An analysis of the campaign’s content over the span of the war reveals that UNRWA has been the single most popular topic.”

A former Israeli soldier co-authored the Wall Street Journal piece about UNRWA, which was based solely on unverified Israeli accusations.

The same network of fake accounts was also noticed by Marc Owen Jones, an expert on internet influence campaigns and associate professor of Middle East studies at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Qatar, last month.

“Discovered hundreds of sock puppets promoting Israeli propaganda on X, Threads, FB & Insta. It also includes ‘fake’ websites,” Jones wrote in a series of social media posts on February 2.

“Recently, it has been spreading anti-UNRWA #disinformation, & trying to undermine solidarity between Palestinians & Black people.”

The fake accounts which Jones characterised as a "massive cross platform pro-Israel deception operation" coincide with Israel's strong drive to end UNRWA's mandate.

The Israeli government claimed earlier this year that 12 UN employees took part in the October 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas, which resulted in the deaths of over 1,030 people.

UNRWA launched an inquiry over the claims. An impartial commission was also created by the UN to investigate the agency.

More than a dozen Western nations, led by the US, withdrew financing for UNRWA in response to the Israeli claims. UNRWA provides millions of Palestinian refugees in Gaza and throughout the Middle East with essential services including healthcare and education.

The population of Gaza is made up primarily of descendants and refugees who were driven from their homes during the 1948 state of Israel's establishment.

Human rights activists have cautioned that cutting off UNRWA's financing will only worsen the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where residents are at risk of starvation due to Israel's siege of the region.

As per a report released by UNRWA and viewed by multiple media platforms last month, its employees in Gaza were subjected to torture by Israeli forces until they confessed to having ties to Hamas.

A number of nations, notably Australia and Canada, have started contributing again to the UN organisation in recent weeks.

However, in spite of the administration of US President Joe Biden's numerous acknowledgements of UNRWA's critical role in providing assistance to Palestinians, UNRWA funding remains suspended.

A foreign funding bill that Congress is debating that would prohibit US money for UNRWA has also received support from the White House.

Politicians on the Democratic side have urged Biden to restore the aid. “There’s no doubt that the claim that [Israeli] Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and others are making, that somehow UNRWA is a proxy for Hamas, are just flat-out lies,” Senator Chris Van Hollen told CBS News on Sunday.