Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz asked the head of the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to resign due to allegations of involvement of 12 agency employees in the attack committed by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, dpa reports. Sunday, quoted by Agerpres.

“Mr. Lazzarini, please resign,” Israel Katz wrote Saturday night on the X platform.

The head of UNRWA, Philip Lazzarini, has previously warned that the aid his agency is providing to Gaza is virtually at a standstill after several countries temporarily suspended funding to the organization.

Israeli government spokesman Eilon Levy accused UNRWA of being a front for Hamas. “It’s just a cover for Hamas,” he wrote on X.

Nine countries temporarily suspended funding to UNRWA after Israel accused 12 of the organization’s several thousand members in the Gaza Strip of involvement in the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas that killed around 1,200 people.

The UN agency has fired those employees and said it intends to investigate the allegations.