UNRWA openly defines itself by the Palestinian “right of return.” Its website says the agency was established “to provide assistance pending the implementation” of UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which UNRWA says “enshrin[es]” that right. At the same time the agency claims it has no mandate to pursue durable solutions for refugees. By tying its mission to Resolution 194 while declining to pursue alternatives, UNRWA signals that return — not resettlement or integration — is the solution it recognizes.
When the Knesset moved in October 2024 to bar UNRWA, Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini denounced the legislation as a political attack on Palestinians’ “refugee status” and “right of return.” That response underscores UNRWA’s broader position: the right of return is central to its mission — and to its public communications.
UNRWA’s public messaging amplifies that position. On June 20, 2023, the official @UNRWA X account quoted 92-year-old Daher: “Our right of return is what will eternally fuel our hopes.” On May 26, 2015, @UNRWA posted Amal: “Our dream is the right of return; we cannot imagine spending another 65 years in diaspora,” tagging it #justsolution and framing return as the just outcome.
Testimony from UNRWA students shows that classrooms convey a promise of violent return. Asked whether he learns about peace, UNRWA student Masud said, “Of course not. There’s no peace in our schools. It’s all about us returning to our land. The solution is Jihad in the path of Allah.” On the right of return, UNRWA student Khuteiba said he is taught “to fight, and to keep fighting until Palestine is liberated!” Asked about Jerusalem, UNRWA student Mohammad said, “We kill the Jews. We get rid of the Jews. Inshallah, Jews will be wiped out from all of Palestine by the grace of Allah.”
When UNRWA beneficiaries protested the agency’s March 2024 suspension of Fateh Sharif, who was both an UNRWA principal and the Hamas leader in Lebanon, they insisted that UNRWA’s role is to serve “as an international witness to [Palestinian refugees’] displacement.” This rhetoric has not remained confined to words. UNRWA leaders and teachers have actively mobilized students in support of the “right of return.” In 2018, UNRWA Gaza leaders mobilized their students to join the Hamas-orchestrated March of Return, which UNRWA itself described as a demand to end the Israeli blockade and secure the “right of return” for refugees. Suhail Al-Hindi, the Hamas leader who directed the March of Return and previously headed the UNRWA Gaza Staff Union, called it “a national struggle tool” that would “continue until their goals are achieved, most notably establishing the right of return for all of Palestine and breaking the siege on Gaza.”
On February 25, 2018, the UNRWA Gaza Staff Union published a notice on Facebook instructing teachers and students to participate in a series of UNRWA-organized marches and sit-ins beginning on February 27 and culminating in “a large crowd at our borders.” On September 17, 2018, the Union issued another notice, urging students and teachers to abandon school to join the border marches as a matter of “national duty, and a duty as a union [member].” UNRWA employee and Gaza Staff Union leader Ahmed Labad, also a Hamas member, promoted the marches in an April 6, 2018 Facebook post praising the “courage and bravery of the people of Gaza” who, he claimed, “defeated the Zionist machine,” signing off with the hashtag #I_am_Coming_Back.
The campaign extended beyond Gaza. In Lebanon, UNRWA principal and teachers’ union head Fateh Sharif — also the Hamas leader in Lebanon — issued a Facebook call for Palestinian refugees to “sound your voices and cry out to the occupation, saying that you support resistance, liberation and return,” and proclaiming that “Palestine” and “Jerusalem” are “waiting.”
In response to these calls by their UNRWA mentors, many students participated in the violent border riots, which — like October 7 — aimed to breach the border fence, invade Israeli communities, and kill civilians, while allowing Hamas to probe Israel’s defenses. UNRWA reported that 13 UNRWA students were killed and 227 injured. Its Gaza Director Matthias Schmale framed the marches as evidence of the “dire situation” that demands a “just and lasting solution.” Taken together with UNRWA’s founding commitment to the “right of return” and its refusal to pursue durable alternatives, these developments show that UNRWA does not merely echo the right of return — it institutionalizes and mobilizes it, with concrete and deadly consequences.
Below, UN Watch documents how both UNRWA officials and Palestinian terrorist groups routinely link the agency’s existence to the right of return.
UNRWA International Representatives
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner-General: Accusing Israel of seeking “to eliminate UNRWA’s role in protecting the rights of Palestine Refugees and acting as a witness to their continuing plight.” (February 22, 2024, UNRWA)
Pierre Krähenbühl, UNRWA Commissioner-General: “Palestine refugees can remain assured that UNRWA is not only a service provider. We remain the witness of the injustice that has taken place. We will stand our ground on that and defend this. There is nothing to be negotiated on that part.” (September 15, 2015, UNRWA)
Matthias Schmale, UNRWA Gaza Director: “UNRWA will remain the living witness to the issue of Palestinian refugees.” (May 8, 2015, Falestinona)
Adam Bouloukos, UNRWA’s Director of Affairs in the West Bank: UNRWA is “never able to de-link service provision from the right of return” (April 8, 2024, Washington Post)
UNRWA Local Leaders
Hatem Asad, UNRWA Lebanon Principal and Staff Union Leader: “UNRWA is the living witness to the issue of Palestinian refugees everywhere.” (May 8, 2015, Falestinona)
UNRWA Gaza Staff Union headed by Amir Al-Mishal: Protesting the January 2018 U.S. funding cuts to UNRWA, the Union decried the funding cuts as “desperate attempts to end UNRWA as the sole witness to the refugee issue.” (January 23, 2018, Palestinian Refugees Portal)
Ibrahim Merie, UNRWA Lebanon Principal and Staff Union Leader: UNRWA is a “right for the Palestinians until they return to Palestine.” (March 28, 2024, Palestinian Refugees Portal)
Palestinian Terrorist Leaders (Hamas, PIJ, Hezbollah, and others)
Taher Al-Nunu, Hamas Spokesman: “UNRWA’s role is a functional one towards the refugees until their return.” (October 2, 2011, Al Jazeera)
Ali Baraka, Hamas Foreign Relations Chief speaking for the Palestinian Forces Alliance: “This sit-in confirms that the Palestinian people are one people and they want to return. We call on the international community to support UNRWA financially until we return to Palestine.” (May 8, 2015, Falestinona).
Ali Baraka, Hamas Foreign Relations Chief: In a meeting with UNRWA Lebanon Director Matthias Schmale, the Hamas delegation led by Baraka stressed that UNRWA’s job is to provide relief and employment to Palestinian refugees “until they return to their homes.” (November 6, 2015, laji-net)
Palestine Liberation Front: The PLF representative stated that “UNRWA is an eyewitness to the Palestinian people’s catastrophe” and emphasized that donors must continue to fund UNRWA “until the refugees return to their homes.”(November 25, 2017, Al Buss)
Representatives of Palestinian factions and Popular Committees (terrorist coalitions in Lebanon): The terrorists “stressed their adherence to the agency and their support for the ‘Dignity is Priceless’ campaign because the agency remains a living witness to the 1948 Nakba.” (January 25, 2018, Palestine Refugees Portal)
Hassan Hoballah, Hezbollah Political Council member: “UNRWA is the only witness to the barbarism of the Zionist occupation since 1948 and the symbol of return to the homeland of Palestine.” Hoballah accused the U.S. administration of trying to end UNRWA “in preparation for dropping the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their land, homes and homeland, Palestine.” (August 20, 2018, Abed Khattar Blog)
Suhail Al-Hindi, Hamas Leader and Former Head of UNRWA Gaza Staff Union: UNRWA’s activities and services have “a very significant and positive impact” on the Palestinian people and on ensuring that “the Palestinian right of return remains intact.” (December 17, 2018, Refugee Academy YouTube)
Gaza’s Joint Refugee Committee headed by the DFLP: Affirmed “its commitment to UNRWA remaining a living witness to the Palestinian refugee issue, preserving it and protecting it from attempts at liquidation.” (June 24, 2020, Popular Committee For Refugees – Al Maghazi Camp Facebook Page)
The Palestinian Joint Action Committee and the Palestinian Popular Committees (terrorist coalitions in Lebanon): “We affirm in this context our adherence to UNRWA as a living witness to the Palestinian refugee issue and concerned with the relief and employment of Palestinian refugees until the right of return is achieved.” (March 29, 2021, Falestinona)
Hamas leader Suhail Al-Hindi: Accused UNRWA’s management of “submission to the will of ‘Israel,’” which he said was seeking to end UNRWA “as a living witness to the continued suffering of our Palestinian people.” (August 25, 2021, Paltimeps)
Ihsan Ataya, PIJ representative in Lebanon: UNRWA is “a living international witness to the refugee issue and must be preserved.” (December 7, 2021, The Palestinian Information Center)
The DFLP: The DFLP affirmed “its adherence to UNRWA as one of the centers of the right of return.” (September 28, 2023, Al Watan Voice)
