According to intelligence reports examined by The Wall Street Journal, at least 12 employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) were linked to Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Additionally, approximately 10% of the agency’s Gaza staff are reported to have connections to Islamist terror groups.
An UNRWA spokesperson on Monday declined to comment, saying reporters should wait for the results of an internal UN investigation of the agency.
Six individuals affiliated with UNRWA were identified as participants in the October 7, two were involved in the kidnapping of Israelis, while two others were traced to locations where numerous Israeli civilians were shot and killed. Additional members played roles in coordinating logistical aspects of the assault, such as the procurement of weapons.
Teachers make up close to three-quarters of UNRWA’s Gaza-based local staff. A Hamas-affiliated math teacher in Gaza captured a photo of a female hostage in close proximity, while another teacher was found carrying an antitank missile the night before the invasion. An UNRWA employee established an operations room for Islamic Jihad on October 8. Three other UNRWA employees, including an Arabic teacher, received a text from Hamas instructing them to arm themselves at a staging area near the border the night before October 7.
One elementary school teacher crossed into Israel, targeting the Re’im district where a kibbutz, an army base, and a music festival were attacked. An intelligence report indicates that a 13th UNRWA employee, lacking a discernible affiliation with a terror group, also entered Israel. Hundreds of Gazan civilians, including UNRWA teachers, participated in the Hamas-led attack by flooding across the border.
According to intelligence estimates that Israel shared with the US, approximately 1,200 out of UNRWA’s 12,000 employees in Gaza are believed to have affiliations with Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Additionally, about half of these employees have close relatives who are members of these Islamist terror groups. Both Hamas and Jihad are designated as terrorist organizations by the US and other countries.
“UNRWA’s problem is not just ‘a few bad apples’ involved in the October 7 massacre,” a senior Israeli government official told the WSJ. “The institution as a whole is a haven for Hamas’s radical ideology.”
The UNRWA website says the agency has more than 30,000 employees, with a small number of international staff, and a majority of “Palestine refugees” – which would make all of them older than 75 years of age, except, of course, all these “refugees” never visited the country from which they were supposedly uprooted. UNRWA runs two headquarters offices, in Gaza and Amman, five field offices in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority, and four Liaison Offices in New York, Geneva, Brussels, and Cairo.
In 2018, the Trump administration halted financial support for UNRWA, contending that the agency’s mission was inherently flawed. However, in 2021, the Biden administration reinstated funding for UNRWA.
Who’s demented now?
Hi @UNRWA ??
Fixed it for you. pic.twitter.com/SVVC2Hbfwj— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) January 29, 2024
