UN Workers Helped Hamas Attack Israel

Countries are pulling their funding from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the United Nations body that performs essential social services in Gaza and elsewhere, due to allegations that at least a dozen of their employees helped plan and took part in the October 7 pogrom which saw over 1,400 Israelis murdered, raped and kidnapped.

It’s about time. For generations, United Nations employees have spread hate and radicalization, and made true peace between Israel and Palestinian Arabs all but impossible. Here are 9 facts about the UN in Gaza and how it has fomented violence through the years.

1. The UN Treats Palestinian Refugees Differently from All Other Refugees in the World

Nearly all refugees around the world are aided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, founded in 1921 by the League of Nations and today run by the United Nations. The High Commissioner for Refugees mandate is “protecting people forced to flee and those left stateless” by international conflicts, and it works around the world to provide emergency help to those forced to flee their homes. It estimates that currently it is aiding 108.4 million people who’ve been displaced from their homes, often by resettling refugees in new countries.

There is one exception to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ work. Any Arab who lived - or who had an ancestor who lived - in any land which today is Israel, Gaza, or the West Bank between June 1, 1946 and May 15, 1948, and was displaced from the location they resided during those two years, is taken care of by a special UN refugee agency: The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

For years, UN agencies have encouraged vile antisemitism and hatred of Israel.

Founded by the United Nations in 1949, after the establishment of the state of Israel, and the subsequent war against it launched by its Arab neighbors, UNRWA is the only UN agency created to care for a specific refugee population. It also defines “refugee” very differently from the rest of the UN.

2. UNRWA Defines Refugee as a Permanent State

In 1951, the UN Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees specified that a person is no longer a refugee if they have found a home in a new country and been granted citizenship in their new home. UNRWA alone ignores this landmark ruling: when it comes to Palestinian Arabs, becoming a citizen of another country has no effect on refugee status. Arabs who resided in present-day Israel between 1946 and 1948 and left are thus permanent refugees, counted as stateless by the United Nations, even if they’ve acquired citizenship in the United States, Jordan, Britain, or elsewhere. What’s more, their children and grandchildren are all considered refugees as well.

In 1965, seeing that many Palestinian Arabs were building new lives for themselves, UNRWA changed their definition of refugee (only for Palestinian Arabs): children and grandchildren of refugees would be considered refugees too. UNRWA changed their rules again in 1982, saying that all descendants through the male line - including adopted children - are refugees, forever, no matter their citizenship status or where in the world they were born or live.

3. UNRWA Creates the False Perception that Israel Will Disappear

By defining refugees so broadly, UNRWA is ensuring that those descended from people who once lived in present-day Israel harbor plans to return to their ancestors’ former homes. While the UN High Commissioner for Refugees considers it a success when refugees settle in safe countries, UNRWA regards any life that their “refugees” build for themselves as temporary.

Today, UNRWA considers 5.9 million people around the world to be Palestinian refugees. By classifying them as refugees - for most people, a temporary designation - UNRWA creates the false perception that the only desirable situation is for these refugees to return to the original spaces their ancestors once lived in. Stoking this false hope encourages people to consider Israel a temporary impediment to their ultimate goal. “UNRWA became a central mechanism in keeping a permanent question mark over the existence of a Jewish state,” explains Israeli politician and writer Einat Wilf.

4. UNRWA Encourages Apartheid in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria

Israel is often erroneously accused of being an apartheid country these days. Ironically, Palestinian Arabs do experience apartheid in some Middle Eastern Arab countries, including Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, where UNRWA operates “refugee camps” which have grown through the years to become massive towns and cities.

In Jordan, the UNRWA counts 2,307,011 Palestinian refugees. According to UNRWA, “most” have Jordanian citizenship, yet the UN still considers them refugees. 18% of the Palestinian population in Jordan lives in 10 areas UNRWA maintains as refugee camps (including inside the capital city, Amman), benefiting from UNRWA funded schools, health clinics, financial loans, and other services. In recent decades, Jordanian authorities have arbitrarily revoked the citizenship of thousands of Palestinian refugees in their country, an act made much easier by the presence of UNRWA to provide documentation, services, and diplomatic representation for the “refugees” in their midst.

UNRWA operates 9 “refugee camps” (often towns and cities, or neighborhoods in cities) in Syria, helping a total of 575,234 “refugees” in that country. Syria has never offered citizenship to Palestinian refugees, including their children and grandchildren. Instead of working with the Syrian authorities to obtain citizenship, or working to settle these Palestinian Arabs in a new country where they could become citizens, UNRWA has encouraged them to remain in Syria, where they are second-class citizens.

In Lebanon, most Palestinian refugees and their descendants are outcasts, denied citizenship and basic rights such as freedom to work and access to schools. Rather than agitate for greater integration or help settle them somewhere else, UNRWA operates 9 refugee camps and 64 schools, sustaining a population of 489,282 permanent refugees. It’s an intolerable situation that wouldn’t be accepted by any other UN agency.

5. The UN Allows Hamas to Avoid the Hard Task of Governing Gaza

It was often supposed that when confronted with the reality of governing, Hamas would become more moderate. That never was the case: Hamas has remained a fanatical, rigid, Islamist group which oppresses LGBTQ+ people, women, Christians, and political dissenters, and is implacably devoted to Israel’s destruction. That’s in part because of UNRWA’s presence in Gaza.

UNRWA allows Hamas to avoid the hard task of governing Gaza by doing much of the day to day work of looking after Gaza’s people for them. In Gaza, UNRWA operates 183 schools and 22 doctors’ offices. That’s 183 schools and 22 medical centers that Hamas doesn’t have to fund and run, leaving Hamas free to devote its money to building a network of fortified bunkers and tunnels throughout the area and building up a massive army and supply of weapons.

With an annual budget of about $1.6 billion, UNRWA employs over 34,000 people. (In comparison, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which aids a much larger population, has a staff of about 18,000.) That represents a massive investment in Gaza’s day to day functioning which Hamas did not have to make.

6. Gaza’s UN Schools Teach Hatred of Jews and Israelis

UNRWA produces many of the textbooks it uses in the hundreds of schools it runs. For years, many of these books have been riddled with hatred for Jews and Israel. UN Watch, an independent organization monitoring the UN, recently combed hundreds of UNRWA textbooks and observed UNRWA schools. It found: “Teachers and schools at the UN agency that runs education and social services for Palestinians regularly call to murder Jews, and create teaching materials that glorify terrorists, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis and incite antisemitism….”

Some of the most egregious examples of antisemitism came from UNRWA schools in Gaza. In one typical example, UNRWA’s Al-Zaytun Elementary School in Gaza included lessons for 5th graders glorified Dalal Mughrabi, a female terrorist who landed in a boat on Israel’s shores in 1978, and helped carry out the “Coastal Road Massacre,” hijacking two busses and shooting and lobbing grenades at passing cars. 38 Israelis were murdered, including 13 children, and many more injured. UNRWA teachers called Mughrabi a “hero” to emulate.

7. UNRWA Allows Hamas to Use its Facilities

UNRWA schools and medical buildings in Gaza have been found to conceal entrances Hamas-built tunnels inside them. Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s Ambassador to Great Britain, recently described the situation in Gaza: “Every school, every mosque, every second house” conceals a Hamas entrance, weapons depot, or both.

Despite the UN’s recent insistence that its employees had absolutely no idea Hamas was building a network of terror tunnels bigger than the London Tube system underneath Gaza, UNRWA officials did report that Hamas was building tunnels under their buildings two times in 2017, and again in 2021 and 2022. It’s impossible to know what the relationship was between each UNRWA site and Hamas and whether UNRWA’s participation in Hamas’ preparations for war were voluntary or coerced. Willingly or not, however, UNRWA - as well as other UN agencies and aid groups - have provided cover for Hamas’ military buildup for years.

Soon after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, as Israel began bombing Hamas targets in Gaza, UNRWA tweeted that Hamas members looted UNRWA food and fuel supplies. UNRWA deleted the tweets and issued statements denying that Hamas had taken any supplies. Willingly or not UNRWA workers were protecting Hamas.

8. UNRWA Has Falsely Accused Israel of Targeting Aid Workers

UNRWA claims over 150 of its employees have been killed during the current war between Hamas and Israel. Their presence in buildings which are known terror centers opens them to risk - and raises the question of why so many UNRWA buildings are doing double duty as Hamas depots as well.

Yet instead of causing any soul searching in the UN, the fact that UN buildings house Hamas tunnels is being ignored. Just before Christmas 2023, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, accused Israel of killing UN aid workers on an unprecedented scale. His accusations shocked the world, yet they say much more about the close ties between UNRWA members and Hamas than about Israel. US Representative Darrell Issa, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the US House of Representatives, has noted “There is extensive evidence of a troubling connection between UNRWA and Hamas, and it is far deeper than was known.”

9. UN Workers Helped Plan and Execute the Massive Pogrom in Israel on Oct. 7.

Given UNRWA’s hostility to Israel, the evidence - which has not been publicly disclosed - that UNRWA workers helped plan and took part in the October 7 attacks in which 1,200 Israelis were murdered and over 240 were kidnapped must be horribly damning. “This was strong and corroborated intelligence,” a senior Israeli official has said, withholding his name. “A lot of the intelligence is a result of interrogations of militants who were arrested during the October 7 attack.” In addition to taking part in the attacks, which included widespread sexual violence, torture, kidnapping, and murder, UNRWA employees used UNRWA vehicles and buildings in the course of the attacks and kidnappings.

On January 25, UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said he received “information about the alleged involvement of several employees” in the horrific attacks. Lazzarini immediately fired a dozen UNRWA employees.

These explosive allegations come just days after the International Court of Justice, another United Nations agency, ruled that Israel must take steps to avoid committing any act that is genocide in its war with Gaza. With Israel’s every military move under intense scrutiny right now, it’s important to examine the people and organizations who are critiquing Israel, as well.

It’s tempting to assume that a prestigious, august institution such as the UN could never harbor genocidal evil as Hamas does. Yet for years, UN agencies have encouraged vile antisemitism and hatred of Israel. UNRWA behaves like a combatant, helping Hamas fight and kill Israelis and Jews. It’s long past time we stopped giving them a pass and held them to account for their actions as combatants and allies of Hamas.