The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the U.N.’s special agency for Palestinians, has strenuously denied that it knew about a Hamas intelligence command center in tunnels underneath its headquarters in Gaza.

The Israel Defense Forces revealed the existence of the hidden complex, which was nearly a mile long, this weekend, when it gave a tour to journalists. Reuters reported that the IDF described the hidden outpost as one of Hamas’s central commands. The tunnel reportedly begins under an UNRWA school and continues beneath the UNRWA headquarters building nearby. It contains a significant server farm. The Times of Israel reported that the IDF learned about the tunnel through intelligence collected during the interrogation of Hamas terrorists captured after the start of its initial offensive into Gaza. An IDF soldier also told the Israeli outlet that troops found weapons caches throughout the headquarters building.

In a post on Saturday, UNRWA commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini defended his agency’s conduct. “UNRWA did not know what is under its headquarters in Gaza,” he said, adding that it learned of the command post through media reporting. Because the facility had been evacuated on October 12 amid the Israeli campaign against Hamas, “we are . . . unable to confirm or otherwise comment on these reports,” Lazzarini wrote. He also said that the last inspection of that UNRWA facility took place in September 2023.

But an Israeli defense ministry office focused on Gaza disputed Lazzarini’s statement, saying that it invited senior U.N. officials to see the facility. “During past meetings with you and other UN officials, we stated Hamas’s use of UNRWA’s headquarters. You chose to ignore the facts so you can later try and deny them,” said that post, on the account of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.

UNRWA had found itself in dire straits before this week’s revelations, as several nations that are its top donors paused funding for the agency after Israel revealed that at least a dozen of its employees participated in the October 7 terrorist attacks. Israel and international watchdog groups have long accused the U.N. of turning a blind eye to Hamas’s infiltration of the organization. Those allegations, contained within an Israeli intelligence dossier, have spurred an international reckoning with the agency’s ties to terrorism.

The State Department recently said that the U.S. will divert funding for UNRWA to other international aid agencies on the ground, such as the World Food Program and UNICEF. Between 2021 and last month, the Biden administration sent over $1 billion to UNRWA.