Hundreds of UNHWRA Staff are Hamas Members

Israel clearly believes that there is an alternative to UNWRA. “Only 13 of the humanitarian aid trucks to Gaza enter through UNWRA. It is false to say that UNWRA is the backbone of humanitarian assistance to Gaza. The majority of aid is going through other agencies and NGOs,” says a senior Israeli official who met EU representatives and briefed reporters in Brussels on the issue of UNWRA’s involvement in terrorism since the October 7 massacres in Israel, writes Yossi Lempkowicz.

Over the weekend, the New York Times published an article confirming what Israel has been saying for ten months : that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the U.N. agency mainly responsible for education and social services in the Gaza Strip, employed dozens of Hamas members.

The paper requested documents from Israel specifically related to UNRWA school employees, after Israel distributed a list of 100 agency workers it said were terrorists.

Through analysis of the documents, obtained by Israel during its military operation in Gaza, and interviews with current and former UNRWA employees, residents and former students in Gaza, the New York Times found that at least 24 people employed by UNRWA — in 24 different schools belonged to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist groups.

“A majority were top administrators at the schools—principals or deputy principals—and the rest were school counselors and teachers, the documents say. Almost all of the Hamas-linked educators, according to the records, were fighters in the military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades,” the paper reported.

On Monday, a senior Israeli official met EU representatives and briefed reporters in Brussels on the issue of UNWRA’s involvement in terrorism since the October 7 massacres in southern Israel.

‘’During the last ten months, we have engaged with the international community, with the UN and donor countries regarding the topic of UNWRA in order to make necessary changes that would guarantee security but until today we didn’t manage to have satisfactory results,’’ explained Alon Simhayoff, Director for UN Political Affairs at Israel’s foreign ministry.

The Knesset, Israel’s parliament has voted two bills: one says that UNWRA will not operate anymore in East Jerusalem and the second one that it would be prohibited for Israeli officials to be in contact with UNWRA. The laws will come into force at the end of January.

How did we reached this point ?

‘’All started last January when we realized that there was an involvement of Hamas employees in the massacres of October 7. We knew in the past that there were some terrorists operatives employed by UNWRA. When we had this information, we shared it with UNWRA but they didn’t do anything about it,’’ Simhayoff told a briefing for journalists organised by the Europe Israel Press Association (EIPA).

‘’But then we had not the full picture of the extent to which Hamas infiltrated the UNWRA. Only after the IDF went into the Gaza Strip and gathered information from Hamas, more and more links to UNWRA came up and we realized that Hamas infiltrated UNWRA in a systematic manner,’’ he said.

He gave several exemples of involvement of UNWRA employees in the 7th of October massacres. Among them, Musa Subhi Musa El Qidra, who is a school counsellor in UNWRA’s school system in the Gaza Strip, but also a member of Hamas where is an assistant to the Khan Yunis brigade commander. On October 7, he assisted his son to kidnap Israeli hostages into the Gaza strip. He didn’t cross the border into Israel himself – his son did- but he helped bringing the hostages inside Gaza.’’

Another example is Faisal Ali Mussalem Al-Naimi, who is a social worker employed by UNWRA in the Gaza Srip. On October 7, he infitrated into Israel with his rifle and kidnapped the body of Jonathan Samerano, a 21-year-old Israeli who participated in the Nova music festival in Re’eim. He was murdered by Hamas terrorists in the

nearby kibbutz Beeri and Al-Naimi with other colleagues took the body who is still in the Gaza Strip. ‘’I didn’t hear Philippe Lazzarini, the UNWRA Commissioner General, or any other official doing something about the fact that one of their employees kidnapped Samerano’s body,’’ said Simhayoff.

‘’The attitude of the UN and UNWRA concerning the infiltration of Hamas was not satisfactory. They tried to present the case as a few ‘rotten apples’ while this is not the case because we told the body charged by the UN to investigate that there are hundreds of Hamas operatives employed by UNWRA in the Gaza Strip.’’

‘’All our interlocutors, including Catherine Colonna, former French Foreign Minister, who was tasked by the UN to lead an independent review group, said they have no mandate to investigate the case of hundreds of Hamas operatives employed by UNWRA, a list that we provided them.’’

Since then, nothing happened despite a letter that was sent by Israel asking for the UN to enlarge the mandate of the review group. ‘’We also send a letter to Lazzarini, as well as to UNWRA’s donor countries presenting a partial list of one hundred of Hamas operatives employed by UNWRA, asking them to immediately fire these people and investigate but once gain nothing happened,’’ said Simhayoff.

‘’For me this is difficult to understand,’’ he said. ‘’The UN decided to ignore the fact that a terrorist organization group is conducing terrorist activitiers under the flag of the UN.’’

Another example provided by Israel is the case of Naji Abdallah Aziz, who is not only a school principal but also heading a section that deals with the military buildup of Hamas. In UNWRA, school principal is a senior position. ‘’There are many school principals and teachers that are members of Hamas or Hamas operatives.,’’ explained Simhayoff who reminded that for years Israel had raised with UNWRA the issue of incitement and indoctrination in school textbooks presenting terrorists as role models for children.

‘’But Naji was not only a member of Hamas’ military wing but also the chief officer of UNWRA and as such I assume he had access to all premises of the UN body. He is still on the payroll of UNWRA despite the information we provided.’’

There is also the case of Khaled Said El Masri, a school principal who is also a member of the Nukhba, the elite unit of Hamas that executed the October 7 massacres.

‘’At least 32 UNWRA facilities, including schools, were used for terrorism including tunnels and Hamas’intelligence command center,’’ Simhayoff added.

‘’For me, as someone who is working to warm the relations between Israel and the UN, ‘’I found this very problematic that a UN organisation is aware of the fact that it is being abused by a terrorist organisation and is not acting properly to rectify the situation.’’

Israel clearly believes that there is an alternative to UNWRA. ‘’Only 13 of the humanitarian aid trucks to Gaza enter through UNWRA. It is false to say that UNWRA is the backbone of humanitarian assistance to Gaza. The majority of aid is going through other agencies and NGOs,’’ noted Simahyoff.

Why does the EU believe that UNWRA cannot be replaced in Gaza ?

‘’I think this is a political stand that explains the attitude of Josep Borrell (former EU foreign policy chief) and other donor countries,’’ responded Simhayoff to a question from EJP. ‘’But the facts are there. For me UNWRA perpetuates the problem of the Palestinian refugees. It is probably possible to be in favour of the political cause of the Palestinians but also to be against terrorism. This was not done neither by Lazzarini nor by others. The political issue and the involvement of terrorists in a UN organisation must be separated.’’