More than 10% of UNRWA principals and senior education staff in the Gaza Strip are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
By Bassam Tawil, Gatestone Institute
Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel, in which terrorists from Gaza murdered 1,200 Israelis, there has been increased evidence of the role the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) plays in supporting and funding Palestinian terrorism.
In early November, Israel passed a new law that will ban UNRWA’s operations in Israel, and prevent Israeli officials from cooperating with the agency.
Given UNRWA’s longtime support for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the ban will benefit not only Israel, but also those Palestinians who are not affiliated with the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group.
The law came after the discovery that several terrorists who participated in the October 7 atrocities – which included murder, rape, beheadings and kidnappings — were officially employed by UNRWA.
The United Nations has even admitted that nine UNRWA staff members “will be sacked because they may have been involved in the October 7 Hamas-led attacks against Israel.”
The accusations surfaced earlier this year, when Israel presented evidence to UNRWA of the involvement of 12 of its staff members in the atrocities. UNRWA identified and terminated the employment of ten of them. Two were confirmed dead.
“I’m inside, I’m inside with the Jews”; “We have female hostages, I captured one”. These are quotes from recordings of UNRWA teachers who took part in the October 7 massacre.
In a video caught by a security camera on October 7, two Hamas terrorists are seen loading onto a truck the corpse of an Israeli civilian they had murdered. These Hamas terrorists were also employees of UNRWA.
They were not the only UNRWA employees involved in the atrocities.
According to Israeli intelligence, more than 450 terrorists belonging to terrorist organizations in Gaza, mainly Hamas, are also employed by UNRWA. According to an IDF report:
“The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has gathered substantial evidence of several other circumstances that reveal the participation of UNRWA staff in the October 7 massacre. This was also confirmed by the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS): In addition to the nine employees that the UN’s investigative team determined were involved in the October 7 massacre, other workers — about whom the team claimed there was insufficient evidence — were also involved in the massacre. They are members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the UN must fire them immediately, and not sweep the issue under the rug.
“By not firing them, the UN Secretary-General and UNRWA’s Commissioner General are brazenly demonstrating their determination to continue employing members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad even after having been presented with incriminating evidence to this effect. It is time for donor governments to wake up and stop funneling their taxpayers’ money to members of designated terrorist organizations.”
A recent report, published by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), an NGO that analyzes schoolbooks and curriculum around the world, exposes deep terrorist ties to UNRWA education.
The report highlights five UNRWA schools where Hamas commanders are principals or senior staff.
The report found that more than 10% of UNRWA principals and senior education staff in the Gaza Strip are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
UNRWA schools, in addition, use class lessons to deny Israel’s existence, promote hostility, and encourage violent narratives.
The report pointed out that at least 12 UNRWA employees in the Gaza Strip who hold senior positions (school principals, deputies, directors and deputy directors of training centers) have been identified as members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
This is far from “a few isolated cases,” as UNRWA claims, and instead points to UNRWA’s endemic links to terror.
Many of UNRWA’s Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad employees have continued to receive a regular salary funded by international taxpayers since October 7.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini recently told the UN General Assembly that his agency provides tolerant, respectful and anti-extremist education in Gaza.
However, IMPACT-se’s new report unveils institutional teaching material taught in five UNRWA schools in Gaza, where Hamas commanders have been exposed masquerading as school principals.
UNRWA teachers and schools have produced material that glorifies violence and terrorism and demonizes Israelis.
An Arabic language study card produced by an UNRWA school in the Gaza Strip contains a reading comprehension story that celebrates an attack on Israeli passengers traveling on a bus, describing it as a “barbecue party.”
Another card produced by an UNRWA school includes a reading comprehension test titled “Hooray for the Heroes.”
It glorifies figures associated with war, violence, religious extremism, and even terrorism. The text encourages young Palestinian students to view these “heroes” as role models.
The study card also encourages students to criticize those who choose a peaceful, fulfilling life over martyrdom: “Drinking the cup of bitterness with glory is much sweeter than a pleasant long life accompanied by humiliation.”
The text’s list of heroes includes: Dalal al-Mughrabi, responsible for the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre, in which 38 civilians were murdered, including 13 children; Izz Ad-Din al-Qassam, founder of the Palestinian jihadi movement and namesake of the Hamas military wing.
A fifth-grade Arabic language summary teaches a text titled: “I Love My Village,” which presents martyrdom in a positive light by praising the fact that the land – a reference to Palestine – is “mixed with the blood of the martyrs.”
It also teaches students that martyrdom and Jihad are “the most important meanings of life.”
A poem taught to seventh-graders portrays Arab nations as a herd of horses – a revered symbol of war in Bedouin Arab culture – that would fall if not united.
The poem calls on knights, symbolizing Arab leaders, to liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem “from the fist of unbelief, from Satan’s aides – revenge to the Jews.”
These are only a few examples of how educational activities organized by UNRWA schools have poisoned the hearts and minds of many Palestinian children over the past seven decades.
The participation of UNRWA employees in the October 7 atrocities against Israelis did not come as a surprise.
What is disturbing is that the UN chief and other donor countries refuse to see what many Palestinians already see, namely that UNRWA has long been playing a significant role in inciting hatred against Israel and raising another generation of Palestinian children on the glorification of violence and terrorism.
It is time for this agency, as well as the entire UN, to be dismantled and removed, or at least, as suggested years ago, to have nations pay only for what they want and to get what they pay for.
It is also time for the Palestinian “refugees” to move on with their lives and stop relying on Western taxpayers’ money.
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