Israel's foreign minister has called on the head of the UN's Palestinian refugee agency to step down after Israel said a Hamas tunnel had been discovered under the evacuated UN headquarters in Gaza.
Israel Katz dismissed UNRWA Commissioner-General Filipe Lazzarini's claim that he was unaware of its existence as "not only absurd, but offensive to common sense".
"His immediate resignation is imperative," he wrote in X.
The documents and weapons cache inside the UN compound itself "confirm that the offices were in fact also used by Hamas terrorists," Israeli officials said.
Katz stressed that the discovery proved UNRWA's "deep commitment" to Hamas.
Lazzarini, who has been under pressure for weeks after Israel revealed that some UNRWA staff were involved in the October 7 Hamas attack, said the agency had not been operating at the compound since October 12.
Instead, he called for an independent investigation.
Hamas denies Israeli claims that it has dug an extensive network of tunnels under schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure as a cover for its activities.
The Israeli army and the Shin Bet security agency reported that operations in Gaza City in recent weeks led to the discovery of a "tunnel shaft" near a school run by the humanitarian agency, BGNES recalls.
The shaft leads to an underground terrorist tunnel that served as a significant Hamas military intelligence asset and passed under the building that serves as UNRWA's main headquarters in the Gaza Strip.
A group of journalists was escorted around the compound and tunnel by the Israeli military on February 8. /BGNES, AFP