UNRWA's Linkage With Hamas and October 7

"We have sufficient information in order to take the actions that we're taking -- which is to say, the termination of those nine individuals."

"For nine people, the evidence was sufficient to conclude that they may have been involved in the seventh of October attacks."

"For us, any participation in the attacks is a tremendous betrayal of the sort of work that we are supposed to be doing on behalf of the Palestinian people."  

Farhan Haq, UN spokesman 

"[UNRWA's employees participated in the] raping [of Israelis]."

"Nine of your employees might have participated in the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. And no, this isn’t evidence ‘fabricated’ by us. This is straight from the [United Nations] itself."

"Your ‘relief’ agency has officially stooped to a new level of low, and it is time that the world sees your true face."

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Nadav Shoshani  

 

Although there were long-held suspicions of untoward links between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East and many of their employees that were locally engaged from Gaza, there was always the standard outraged denial of the UNRWA authorities of any complicity between the UN body for Palestine and the terrorist activities of Hamas in Gaza. Even when, during previous military-terrorist clashes when Israel charged that UNRWA schools were being used as weapons depots for Hamas, sanctimonious denials rained forth.

 

In the Israel Defense Forces' invasion of Gaza following the October 7 atrocities against Israelis in southern Israel adjacent the border with Gaza, it was soon enough verified with repeated discoveries unearthing the incredible extent to which UNRWA was complicit when Israeli troops discovered that Gaza UNRWA schools and hospitals acted as operation centres and weapons depots with tunnels snaking under UNRWA institutional buildings. In UNRWA's central logistics hub Hamas operated its own logistics focused on attacking Israel. 

Praise for Hamas's October 7 atrocities carried out by Islamist terrorists gushed on social media from a group of 3,000 teachers with UNRWA in Gaza. Not surprising that Palestinian children attending Gaza UNRWA schools were taught a curriculum of Jew-hate and that Israel was illegally squatting as imperialist colonialists on Palestinian land. Children were being groomed in those schools to hate and to envision their futures as martyrs for the greater glory of Islam and the restoration of 'Palestine' once Israel was wiped off the map.

The United Nations' internal investigation identified a handful of the much larger contingent of Palestinians with Hamas connections. When the public announcement of the completion of the study was pronounced the finding was that there may have been involvement by employees of UNRWA in the Hamas-led vicious savagery of rape, pillage, torture, and massacres that took place by design on October 7.

Israel had been instrumental in shaming and claiming that at minimum 19 of UNRWA's employees had been actively involved in the attack that killed 1,200 Israelis, abducting 240 other infants, women, the elderly and a handful of Israeli soldiers, along with foreign farm workers. Denials came first, until insistent demands by Israel finally led the UN to reluctantly agree to undertake an internal investigation of the allegations of UNRWA employee-Hamas connections.

Israel's initial claims and evidence to back up those claims were convincing enough to persuade Western backers of the United Nations, including top donor, the United States and others, to suspend their funding to the agency. UNRWA appealed to its donors, stressing its inability to deliver aid to Gaza with the withdrawal of funding and most of those withdrawing financial support to UNRWA have since relented and restored its funding.

"I have decided that in the case of these remaining nine staff members, they cannot work for UNRWA."

"All contracts of these staff members will be terminated in the interest of the Agency."

"The agency’s priority is to continue lifesaving and critical services for Palestine refugees in Gaza and across the region, especially in the face of the ongoing war, the instability and risk of regional escalation." 

Philippe Lazzarini, head, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)

A man collects trash while wearing a jacket bearing the logo of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), along a street in the city of Jenin in the West Bank. Photo by JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP via Getty Images