Last week, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric was asked a question in a press conference:
Q: Given the UN's big role in Gaza, UNRWA, has there ever been any indication to the UN that tunnels are being built under the city?UN: Not to us. I mean... it seems to me that all this infrastructure was built in a highly secretive way. I mean, I see it just as an observer... To think that the UN had any understanding of what was… any information about those operations, I think, is... No is clearly the answer to that.
This is even though the UN has admitted in previous years that tunnels were found underneath their own schools.
In fact, former UNRWA Gaza director Matthias Schmale admitted that it is a "safe assumption" there were extensive tunnels under Gaza, in a 2021 interview:
One of our schools...less than half a kilometer from our compound, you can see it from our compounds very close, the [Israeli] military bombed, put two missiles into the courtyard of that school.They destroyed a tunnel going underneath that school. And again, with precision. They struck exactly at one end of the tunnel and the other end of the tunnel. So they closed it off, basically. Very clear. They knew exactly what they were hitting.Many people told me through my four years, there's tunnels everywhere and it's a safe assumption.Whether there are tunnels under our main compound, I cannot say, you know, that's speculative at this point. But yes, why would they hit so close if there is not something there?
And it isn't as if there were no news articles about the tunnels, especially during the 2014 war.
This is the same interview that got Schmale fired from his UNRWA job, because he said that Israeli airstrikes were accurate, and Gazans protested that he said out loud something that contradicts Hamas' narrative.
(Corrected, I originally thought they were the same person. H/t Hillel Neuer.)
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