Appeared on Fox News Digital, August 14, 2026:

“Lunatics Running the Asylum: That the UN would empower the Islamic Republic of Iran—one of the world's most misogynistic regimes—to a body addressing women's rights is, frankly, Orwellian. The most disturbing part is that many Western states went along.”
— Hillel Neuer @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/micylL0AQX

— UN Watch (@UNWatch) August 18, 2026

Key Quote:

 That the UN would empower the Islamic Republic of Iran—one of the world’s most misogynistic regimes—to a body addressing women’s rights is, frankly, Orwellian. The most disturbing part is that many Western states went along.

Appeared on ILTV, August 5, 2026:

Key Quote:

The very idea of UNRWA today is to teach millions of Palestinians — whether they’re in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, or Jordan — that their mission in life is to dismantle Israel. That is the essence of UNRWA.

Featured on Welt TV, August 18, 2026:

.@welt: “In its annual memorial ceremony, the UN apparently honored a Hamas terrorist. Imad El Samhouri, [UNRWA] teacher in Gaza, was also a member of Hamas. UN Watch released a ‘martyr’ video of him in which he can be seen wearing a uniform and carrying various weapons.” pic.twitter.com/CHLUgMmHvv

— UN Watch (@UNWatch) August 17, 2026

Key Quote:

In its annual memorial ceremony, the UN apparently honored a Hamas terrorist. Imad El Samhouri, [UNRWA] teacher in Gaza, was also a member of Hamas. UN Watch released a ‘martyr’ video of him in which he can be seen wearing a uniform and carrying various weapons.

Quoted in Fox News,“UN watchdog slams potential election of Iran to panel with human rights sway: ‘Lunatics running the asylum’,” August 14, 2026: 

Sadly, at the United Nations today — an organization founded after World War II out of great idealism to bring international peace — it is a case of the lunatics running the asylum. You have the Islamic Republic of Iran, a regime that beats, blinds, tortures, rapes, and imprisons women for standing up for their rights or showing a few strands of hair.

Quoted in Fox News, “Watchdog demands apology after UN memorial erroneously honors Hamas terrorist,” August 26, 2026:

The deeper problem is that the international leadership of UNRWA and of the U.N. rarely act. This is hardly a vetting oversight — it’s a system failure. UNRWA has demonstrated that it is either unwilling or unable to remove Hamas terrorists from its schools. UNRWA cannot be reformed; it must be dismantled if Gaza is ever to be deradicalized and given a real future for peace and success.

Quoted in Welt, “Baerbock honors 136 killed UN staff members – including a Hamas fighter,” August 17, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, director of UN Watch, called on Guterres and Baerbock to retract their tribute to El Samhouri: “Will you apologize for lighting a flame to honor a Hamas terrorist commander at a recent UN ceremony?” Neuer wrote in an open letter on the UN Watch website.

Featured in The Hill, “An ‘insane’ job: Election heats up for next UN secretary-general,” August 17, 2026:

UN Watch, a nongovernmental organization describing itself as combating anti-Israel prejudice, antisemitism and racism at the United Nations, urged the Security Council to reject Bachelet’s bid, criticizing her for refusing to call out dictators and failing to condemn antisemitism during her human rights tenure.

Featured in The Daily Wire, “Top U.N. Brass Lit ‘Eternal Flame’ For Hamas Terror Commander,” August 18, 2026:

In an explosive open letter penned last week, U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer demanded that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and U.N. General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock issue an immediate retraction and a public apology to the victims of Hamas.

Quoted in The Jerusalem Post, “UN helped Iran expand anti-drug crackdown despite execution concerns,” August 17, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, added that the UN “should not be helping Iran’s brutal regime catch people whom it may then torture into confessing and execute after sham trials.” He noted that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s “fundamentalist government routinely denies defendants due process, and has dramatically increased executions for drug offenses, including in cases raising grave questions of innocence and coerced confessions.”

Featured in The Australian, “Hamas lies swallowed by the woke West,” August 17, 2026:

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has been a staunch defender of UNRWA. On June 11, UNRWA sacked another 70 workers, yet refused to acknowledge the sackings were linked to Hamas membership even though UN Watch supplied information suggesting 400 staff are Hamas members.

Featured in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, “Growing doubts about lists of journalists killed in Gaza: how the difficult data situation becomes a weapon in information warfare,” August 10, 2026:

The debate was sparked by a report published on July 8 by the Geneva-based human rights organization UN Watch. In it, the organization, which is considered close to Israel, accused UNESCO of publicly honoring at least seven men killed in the Gaza Strip as journalists, even though they were later identified as members or officials of terrorist organizations.

Quoted in Bild, “Baerbock honored slain Hamas terrorist,” August 15, 2026: 

According to Neuer, El Samhouri was part of a network of more than 400 UNRWA employees with terrorist contacts. He presents the results of his organization’s simple research on social media: countless posts glorifying terrorism by the alleged school principal. Neuer’s further accusation: children in UNRWA schools continue to be indoctrinated with hatred and terrorism.

Featured in Ynet, “Francesca Albanese cries defamation to Elon Musk on X over UN Watch chief’s ‘Hamas spox’ label,” August 25, 2026:

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has accused UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer of ‘outright defamation’ after he described her as ‘Hamas’s de facto spokesperson’ at the United Nations, escalating a long-running public feud between the two.

Quoted in JNS, “Amnesty: India’s weapons shipments to Israel suggest ‘complicity’ in ‘genocide’,” August 11, 2026: 

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, told JNS that “Amnesty’s accusation is an obscene inversion of truth.The only attempted genocide was Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre. Had they not been stopped, Hamas terrorists would have continued slaughtering Israelis,’ he said, referring to the Palestinian Arab invasion of southern Israel, and the ensuing atrocities and hostage-taking that launched the war in 2023.”

Quoted in The Jewish Chronicle, “The UN leader lit a candle for a Hamas commander – the organisation is ‘no longer fit for purpose’,” August 26, 2026: 

El Samhouri was not a man leading a double life with any great subtlety. His social media accounts, still publicly available, show him posing with Hamas officials and celebrating the kidnapping and murder of Jews. In his capacity as an educator, he brought Hamas figures into UNRWA schools to address the pupils and preside over ceremonies, and scouted and recruited children into Hamas-linked organisations. UN Watch lists him within a network of more than 400 UNRWA staff with documented terror ties. As Hillel Neuer, its executive director, asked in an open letter to Guterres and Baerbock this month, how many UNRWA teachers must emerge from Hamas tunnels before the UN concedes that the terrorists are not merely beneath its schools but inside them?

Featured in Frankfurter Rundschau, “Baerbock honors UN staff – now there is a serious suspicion,” August 16, 2026: 

UN Watch cites footage allegedly showing El Samhouri in combat gear with assault rifles and hand grenades as supposed evidence. According to UN Watch, he is said to have stated in a video: “Death in the path of Allah is our highest goal,” as reported by RUHR24. UN Watch chief Hillel Neuer stated that the alleged connections were already publicly known.

Featured in Jüdische Allgemeine, “UN honors slain Hamas commander,” August 17, 2026:

In an open letter, UN Watch Director Hillel Neuer calls for an independent investigation into how a Hamas commander was able to run UNRWA schools for more than a decade – and who within the agency knew about it or should have known. He urges Guterres and Baerbock to apologize to the victims of Hamas, to disclose all UNRWA staff members whose links to terrorism have been proven, and to hold those in charge accountable. He also calls for the retraction of El Samhouri’s commendation.

Featured in Makor Rishon, “From Hamas tunnels to UN corridors: The affair that embarrasses UNRWA,”  August 18, 2026:

Hamas was proud of him as a field commander, in the documentation he was seen armed and coming out of tunnels, but at the UN he was presented as a teacher and school principal who fell in the line of duty — now UN Watch is demanding an independent investigation, an apology and the revocation of the honor given to him.

Quoted in News 12/Mako, “‘Zionism is racism’: Inside the well-oiled machinery of the obsession with Israel at the UN,” August 27, 2026:

Since October 7, the situation has only gotten worse. “It is impossible to overstate how completely biased the UN is today against the West, against the United States and especially against the State of Israel,” Neuer claims. At the Human Rights Council, where he speaks regularly, the agenda is structured in a distorted way: “There is one day for the whole world, and there is one day against Israel. There is no item on the agenda for North Korea, none for Iran, and none for what Russia is doing in Ukraine. There is no other country in the world that is targeted in this way. It is systematic.”

Featured in Maariv, “‘Get out of here’: Ben Gvir and Tali Gottlieb lost patience in the debate on UNRWA,” August 3, 2026:

As a reminder, about a month ago, UN Watch called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to immediately lift any immunity enjoyed by the outgoing UN official, so that competent national authorities can investigate and prosecute him for alleged complicity in terrorism, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The request was submitted in a formal legal letter relying on Article 20 of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN. The letter argued that immunity exists solely to protect the interests of the UN — not individual officials — and should be lifted.

Quoted in Ruhr24,“Baerbock at the center of it: Explosive suspicion at memorial service,” August 18, 2026:

UN Watch chief Hillel Neuer addressed the case in an open letter to Guterres and Baerbock, which was published by UN Watch. According to him, El Samhouri’s alleged terrorist connections were publicly known. “There must be no immunity, no impunity, and no ‘eternal flame’ for terrorists who infiltrate the United Nations,” Neuer is quoted as saying. According to UN Watch, El Samhouri was part of a network of more than 400 UNRWA employees with terrorist ties.

Featured in Libero Quotidiano, “UN commemorates Hamas terrorist,” August 17, 2026: 

The NGO UN Watch, led by Hillel Neuer, lifted the veil on this affair by sending an open letter to UN leaders and Western governments. Neuer simply asks: the teacher-terrorist’s social media profiles were public and featured photos with Hamas leaders and posts glorifying the kidnappings. How is it possible that no one within the agency knew?

Featured in News.de, “Annalena Baerbock: Controversy after NGO allegations – former foreign minister allegedly honored Hamas terrorists,” August 22, 2026:

Another recording shows the UNRWA school director apparently exiting a Hamas tunnel. According to UN Watch, he says: “Praise be to Allah for the tunnels; the Zionist enemy has no idea that we will emerge from the depths of the earth, from the rubble.” UN Watch chief Hillel Neuer emphasized that these alleged links to Hamas were already publicly known before the commemoration. Neuer addressed his criticism in an open letter not only to Guterres, but also directly to the former German foreign minister.

Featured in Just Security, “U.N. Secretary-General Candidates May Agree More than They Differ on the Way Forward,” August 5, 2026:

While the power of the veto hasn’t changed, the contest is more publicly visible today. The 2016 race introduced public hearings and candidate dialogues, and the current contest is already producing organized campaigns for and against individual candidates. UN Watch, a vocal critic of the U.N., has urged the Council to reject Bachelet’s bid, Republican lawmakers have called on the United States to veto her, and U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz has publicly questioned her fitness for the role.

Quoted in All Israel News, “UN official Albanese, UN Watch chief clash over ‘Hamas spokesperson’ claim,” August 26, 2026:

“Francesca Albanese cannot refute the facts of her record, so she resorts to crying ‘outright defamation’ and trying to get X to censor the truth on her behalf,” Neuer argued. “For years we have documented that Albanese functions as Hamas’s de facto spokesperson at the United Nations,” he added, accusing her of repeatedly “inverting the Holocaust,” invoking antisemitic tropes concerning Jewish power and the “Jewish lobby,” and “justifying” or “contextualizing” the Oct. 7 massacre.

Quoted in Nuevo Mundo Israelita, “Sánchez accused Israel of causing famine. Now he’s subjecting Moroccan migrants to starvation,” August 7, 2026: 

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, commented on this blatant hypocrisy in a sarcastic statement on X, along with a link to an article about Spain’s appalling treatment of migrants. “Thank you for lecturing the world on international law, humanitarianism, and that ‘public responsibility also implies a moral obligation not to look the other way,’” he noted, quoting Sánchez verbatim.

Quoted in Jüdische Allgemeine, “Following pro-Israel song: Boy George fires his record label manager,” August 3, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, director of the Geneva-based organization UN Watch, declared: “Boy George, you had the courage to stand up for truth and humanity while others marched with the crowd. Now the United Nations must hear your voice. I will do everything in my power to ensure that this happens.”

Quoted Brasil En Folhas “UN watchdog criticizes potential inclusion of Iran in committee,” August 14, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, based in Geneva, declared that Iran is one of the last governments with influence in the organization. He stated that the situation at the UN represents “madmen running asylum,” citing the Iranian regime for violence against women who defend their rights.

The post UN Watch in the News — August 2026 appeared first on UN Watch.

UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer appeared on ILTV with Calev Ben-David to discuss Israel’s Supreme Court challenge to the UNRWA ban, the agency’s ties to Hamas, and the future of Gaza.

Calev Ben-David, ILTV: In other news, Israel’s Supreme Court is this week hearing a potentially landmark legal challenge to the recent Israeli law banning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which deals with Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere, from operating in Israel. The law also bans Israeli officials from working with UNRWA.

A High Court petition filed by the civil rights group Adalah argues that the law undermines humanitarian assistance for Palestinians in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, and East Jerusalem, while also raising constitutional concerns. The Israeli government says the law is a critical security measure, accusing a number of UNRWA employees of taking part in the October 7 attacks and of maintaining ties to Hamas.

UNRWA has dismissed several employees but says Israel has not provided evidence to support all of its allegations.

Joining us for more on this issue is Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch. I think it’s fair to say, Hillel, that you, more than anybody else, have really led the way in exposing UNRWA’s links to Hamas.

First of all, I’d like to get your reaction to this challenge to the Israeli law. I should note that, in the past, Israel’s Supreme Court has generally allowed the government to make decisions on issues specifically related to security. What’s your view?

Hillel Neuer: Look, the foreign minister of Switzerland, Ignazio Cassis, said several years ago that UNRWA is perpetuating the conflict. He said it has become “a perverse logic.” We, he said, who are funding and supporting UNRWA, are only perpetuating the conflict.

That’s the truth. That’s the reality.

It’s not just a question of reform. The very idea of UNRWA today—even though its origins were benign—is to teach millions of Palestinians, whether they’re in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, or Jordan, that their mission in life is to dismantle Israel.

Keep in mind, Jordan has two million citizens who have Jordanian citizenship, but according to the UN, they are UNRWA refugees, which means their mission in life is to “return,” as they call it—which, in their minds, means returning, like October 7, through violence and massacre, to dismantle Israel.

That is the essence of UNRWA. The Israeli law, I would say, finally—perhaps decades too late—recognized that.

Calev Ben-David, ILTV: I want to expand beyond that because this law applies to territory under Israeli control. But, as we reported earlier in the broadcast, there is now a process in Gaza that would see the IDF pull back and establish a new governance structure in the Gaza Strip.

The question is: what is being done, potentially, either to reform UNRWA—which, as you say, is probably impossible—or replace it with another kind of administration, which the Trump administration had previously tried to do, with very mixed results?

Hillel Neuer: Look, the Board of Peace has said expressly that UNRWA will not be part of the future of Gaza. They have said it very clearly. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has said it as well. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that UNRWA has become a subsidiary of Hamas.

That is corroborated by our research in Gaza and Lebanon.

Keep in mind, the head of the UNRWA Teachers’ Union in Gaza, representing 8,000 UNRWA teachers funded by Western states, was Suhail al-Hindi. He’s a member of the Hamas politburo. He’s now one of the Hamas leaders who meets with the Iranian regime in Qatar on behalf of Hamas. He was a teacher, a school principal, and the head of 8,000 teachers.

The same happened in Lebanon. The head of the UNRWA Teachers’ Union there, a teacher and school principal for 30 years, Fathi Sharif, was the commander of Hamas in Lebanon until justice was delivered to him some two years ago.

UNRWA knows about this. Philippe Lazzarini, who was the head of UNRWA for the past five years and has now retired, should be held accountable. There is no way he could have been unaware that the heads of UNRWA teachers’ unions were Hamas leaders.

They pretend they didn’t know, but the fact is we released a 100-page report showing that Fathi al-Sharif, every day on his Facebook page, was posting photos of himself with Hamas and other terrorist leaders.

They knew. They were complicit. They need to be held to account.

Calev Ben-David, ILTV: You mentioned the Board of Peace, but that board does include—or is planning to include—representatives from Turkey and Qatar, countries that have certainly defended UNRWA, to say the very least. That appears to have had some influence, at least in the Trump administration’s planning for Gaza.

How hopeful are you, under those circumstances, that some kind of alternative structure will be established in Gaza to replace UNRWA’s functions?

Hillel Neuer: You’re right to point the finger at Qatar and Turkey. They have been legitimizers, funders, and enablers of Hamas. Hamas leaders were based in Qatar, and many are now in Turkey. The Turkish foreign minister was openly tweeting just a few days ago about hosting a Hamas leader.

If these countries have any influence over the process, it will be a failure. Hopefully they won’t.

The fact is, the people speaking for the Board of Peace are condemning UNRWA so clearly that whoever is in charge of the Board of Peace today is not Qatar or Turkey—it’s someone else.

I agree that Qatar and Turkey should not have any influence on the ground in Gaza. Otherwise, we’re going to repeat what we saw before: enabling Hamas and sending Palestinians into a very dark future.

If we get rid of UNRWA and tell Palestinians that the future is not about resentment and war but about building a future, they could have a great future.

But no future administration in Gaza can succeed unless people sign on the dotted line that they are not refugees. Otherwise, any money sent there will once again go into terror tunnels.

They have to accept that wherever they are living is where they are going to build their future. It’s not about creating terror tunnels to destroy Israel.

Calev Ben-David, ILTV: Briefly, is there something Israel should be doing more of? As you mentioned, they came to this somewhat belatedly. You more or less led the way on this issue. Is there more the Israeli government should be doing?

Hillel Neuer: Actually, I’d like to give credit to Dr. Einat Wilf, who wrote the primary book on this with Dr. Adi Schwartz, The War of Return.

They explained that, for a decade, they had been calling out UNRWA. Einat Wilf, a former Knesset member who is now running with her own party, has said that when she approached IDF leaders, they would tell her, “It buys us quiet.”

But that was a false quiet. It was an illusion of temporary quiet. At the end of the day, the fact that there are Hamas murderers who want to murder Jews is a symptom. The real problem is the education they receive.

UNRWA, whether in Lebanon, Jordan, or elsewhere, educates Palestinians that their mission is to dismantle Israel.

Israelis did not want to recognize that reality. They were living under an illusion. That included the defense establishment.

That illusion blew up in their faces on October 7.

The post Hillel Neuer on ILTV: “UNRWA Is Perpetuating the Conflict” appeared first on UN Watch.

Appeared on CBN, July 16, 2026:

Key Quote:

UNRWA exists only to perpetuate war, grievance, and terrorism. They’re not there for solutions. They’re there to make war. UNRWA has to be dismantled if we want peace with Israel and Palestinians…They would commandeer the trucks. They would sell it on the market. So this is something we knew and now even the UN is acknowledging it.

Appeared on The Brendan O’Neill Show, July 30, 2026:

Key Quote:

You asked about the role that UNRWA plays. I’ll just mention two cases that are emblematic, one in Gaza, one in Lebanon. In Lebanon, there was the head of the teachers’ union of UNRWA named Fathi Sharif. He was a teacher for some 30 years, school principal of about a thousand students outside of Tyre, Lebanon, for UNRWA. And he was also the commander of Hamas in Lebanon. So I’ll say that again: an UNRWA teacher, school principal, head of 2,000 teachers in the union of UNRWA, and he was the commander of Hamas. How do we know it? Hamas said so.

Featured in The Australian, “Bondi Survivor Addresses UN,” July 2, 2026:

Bondi survivor Arsen Ostrovsky has urged international action on violent antisemitism and its antecedents in an address to the United Nations just days after speaking before the royal commission. Mr Ostrovsky flew from Sydney to Geneva hours after describing to the royal commission the tirade of online conspiracy he faced after surviving Australia’s worst ever terror attack. Overnight he appeared at the United Nations Human Rights Council as a delegate for the human rights group UN Watch.

Quoted in Fox News, “US Urges Donors to Abandon UNRWA Funding as UN Defends Agency’s Mission,” July 8, 2026:

The funding dispute comes as UN Watch is demanding that Guterres waive any immunity enjoyed by Lazzarini, whose term has ended, so national authorities can investigate allegations that he ignored repeated warnings about Hamas infiltration. In a June 30 letter, the Geneva-based watchdog claimed that it had provided Lazzarini and his administration with evidence involving teachers, school principals, union leaders and other employees who allegedly supported or were affiliated with Hamas and other terrorist groups. It argued that the claims create grounds for an independent criminal investigation. Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, told Fox News Digital that his organization told Lazzarini “that there are supporters of terrorism — in some cases, actual members of Hamas — working as teachers, working as school principals,” Neuer said, “Not one bad apple, not a few rotten apples, but the problem of support for terrorism … was systematic.”

Quoted in the Washington Examiner, “Bipartisan House Members Introduce Bill to Dismantle UN Agency That Supports Palestinian Refugee Relief,” July 17, 2026:

Among UNRWA’s biggest critics has been UN Watch, a non-governmental organization dedicated to monitoring the failures of the United Nations. The bill introduced on Tuesday advocates the same path that Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, has laid out to dismantle the agency while finding proper substitutes for the humanitarian needs it covers. “We’ve been the lead organization monitoring UNRWA in the past 10 years, and we’ve concluded, based on hundreds of pages of in-depth reports, that the agency is beyond reform,” he told the Washington Examiner. “For about eight, nine years, we were calling for major reform. We asked them not to hire teachers who glorify Adolf Hitler on a regular basis, not to hire teachers and employees who openly promote Hamas terrorist attacks on a regular basis on their social media, and presumably in the classrooms as well,” Neuer said. “And the response from UNRWA was denial. They attacked us. They defamed us. Everything but addressing the issue.”

Quoted in Andalou Agency, “UN General Assembly Renews Volker Türk’s Term as Rights Chief,” July 24, 2026:

In social media posts, the pro-Israeli UN Watch group criticized Turk for condemning Israel “58 times” during his tenure, while condemning the US “more times than he condemned China, North Korea, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Qatar combined.” The group noted that Turk condemned US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran in February, claiming he described Iran’s response as “retaliatory,” which it said lent legitimacy to Iran’s attacks.

Quoted in Fox News, “Waltz Slams France After Stunning Social Media Attack on US After UN Vote,” July 27, 2026:

UN Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog, published a 2024 analysis of public statements initiated by Türk or his office between Oct. 17, 2022, and Oct. 31, 2024. The organization concluded that Türk criticized the United States more frequently than China, North Korea, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Qatar combined. It also said it found no self-initiated criticism during that period concerning abuses by Cuba, North Korea, Algeria, Eritrea, Mauritania, Lebanon or Qatar. UN Watch’s methodology excluded statements required by the Human Rights Council, comments in mandated reports, broad updates to the council and other remarks that were not initiated at Türk’s discretion. Its findings therefore do not encompass every country reference, report or action by Türk’s office. UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer called the renewal “rushed and unprecedented” and said it was “unseemly” for French President Emmanuel Macron’s government to attack the United States while celebrating Türk’s reappointment.

Featured in Il Foglio, “Yazidi Woman ISIS Sold to Hamas and Freed by Israel Speaks at the UN,” July 3, 2026:

On October 1, 2024, Fawzia was rescued by the Israeli army in Gaza. Today, she is in Germany, where she is slowly rebuilding her life thanks to European hospitality. On June 26, Fawzia Sido spoke at the 62nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council at the invitation of Hillel Neuer’s UN Watch. “I come forward today not to provide numbers and statistics that will end up buried in reports and forgotten, but as a human being who has endured what no one on this planet has ever experienced.”

Featured in Haaretz, “Inside the German Pro-Israel Lobby’s Campaign to Defund UNRWA,” July 7, 2026:

According to the report, WELT relied heavily on material produced by organizations such as UN Watch and IMPACT-se in its coverage of UNRWA. In 2021, WELT political editor Frederik Schindler published an opinion column calling for Germany to freeze funding to UNRWA, drawing extensively on IMPACT-se’s findings. Following October 7, the report says, the newspaper increasingly amplified Israeli allegations that Hamas had infiltrated UNRWA and that some of its employees had participated in the attacks.

Featured in the Jerusalem Post, “‘I Am Proof of Hamas’s Violence’: Ex-Hostage Ilana Gritzewsky Tells ‘Post’ of Sexual Abuse in Gaza,” July 5, 2026:

In a speech facilitated by UN Watch, Gritzewsky last month confronted UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women Reem Alsalem for choosing to remain in “silence and denial” when she, along with countless other Israelis, were brutalized.

Quoted in Israel Hayom, “UNESCO Mourned ‘Gazan Journalists’ Exposed as Hamas, Islamic Jihad Terrorists,” July 8, 2026:

UN Watch published a new report in Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday, titled “UNESCO’s Misclassification of Terror Operatives as Journalists in Gaza,” documenting repeated cases in which UNESCO publicly identified Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives as journalists killed in Gaza, despite later acknowledgments by the terrorist organizations themselves that the individuals were members of their military wings…”Press freedom depends on truth,” Neuer concluded. “UNESCO’s mission is to protect journalism, not whitewash the identities of terrorist operatives. The organization now has a duty to correct the records, investigate how these failures occurred and restore trust in its work.”

Quoted in Ynet News, “UN Watch: UNESCO Honored Gaza ‘Journalists’ Later Identified as Terrorists,” July 8, 2026:

UN Watch said the report is based on UNESCO statements, IDF disclosures and publications by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad themselves. The organization is urging UNESCO to retract what it called false classifications, open an independent investigation and revise its procedures for verifying journalist deaths in conflict zones. “When a UN agency publicly memorializes terrorist operatives as journalists, and fails to correct the record even after Hamas itself admits they were fighters, it undermines the credibility of the United Nations and harms the integrity of real journalists who risk their lives reporting from conflict zones,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

Quoted in FDD, “U.S. Must Oppose Outgoing UN Secretary General’s Efforts To Renew Human Rights Commissioner,” July 24, 2026:

However, as the Geneva-based monitoring organization UN Watch pointed out, Turk issued 58 statements condemning Israel’s response in the two years that followed the atrocities, a number that dwarfed his public interventions on other human rights crises. Over time, moreover, Turk’s rhetoric towards Israel notably hardened.

Quoted in JNS, “Israel: Guterres Cements ‘Infamous Legacy’ With Second Term for UN Rights Chief,” July 27, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, a human rights NGO, told JNS: “The U.N.’s rubber-stamp renewal of Volker Turk for an unprecedented second four-year term was a quiet, last-minute maneuver by Secretary-General Guterres, pushed through with minimal scrutiny, no open call for candidates, and no public debate.” “No independent human rights figures endorsed him; on the contrary. That China and so many other human rights abusers backed the extension is the clearest verdict on his record: he never spoke out with the courage the job demands,” he said.

Featured in the Jerusalem Post, “Why I Went to Geneva: The Human Rights System at a Crossroads,” July 2, 2026:

I was there, at the invitation of UN Watch, to deliver a speech to the Human Rights Council and bring forward the findings of the Civil Commission’s historical archive and landmark report, “Silenced No More,” documenting the sexual atrocities committed by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations during the October 7 attacks and the ongoing abuse endured by hostages in captivity.

Quoted in JNS, “UN Piles New Anti-Israel Lies Atop a Mountain of Slander and Corruption,” July 14, 2026:

In short, a rebuttal of the recent COI report by UN Watch reveals that the COI “constructs an entire narrative of intentional killing through stacked assumptions rather than verified facts, transforming uncorroborated allegations into definitive findings of criminal conduct.”…Recent investigations by parties such as UN Watch have found that numerous UNRWA staff members participated in the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Featured in The Algemeiner, “On His Way Out, UNRWA Chief Faces Calls for Criminal Probe Into Hamas Infiltration,” July 2, 2026:

UN Watch, a prominent watchdog organization critical of the United Nations, has called on Secretary-General António Guterres to waive the legal immunity of outgoing UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, arguing that the longtime UN official should face criminal investigation over allegations that he enabled an agency increasingly infiltrated by Hamas.

Featured in JNS, “‘Shocking Conflict of Interest’ That Tlaleng Mofokeng Advising UN While Running to Be Johannesburg Mayor, Expert Says,” July 27, 2026:

Tlaleng Mofokeng, who has been reprimanded by the United Nations for abusive criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is displaying a “shocking conflict of interest” by remaining a U.N. special rapporteur while running to become mayor of Johannesburg, South Africa, according to Hillel Neuer, executive director of the U.N. Watch. Mofokeng has told Netanyahu to “F*** off” on social media and called Neuer “evil scum” and “white man,” and the Health Professions Council of South Africa said in October that she was guilty of misconduct for “using abusive and inappropriate language on social media and for bringing the medical profession into disrepute,” according to Neuer.

Featured in Enlace Judio, “UN Watch Calls for Criminal Investigation of Outgoing UNRWA Director,” July 5, 2026:

UN Watch maintains that, despite repeated warnings, Lazzarini continued to oversee the payment of salaries to thousands of UNRWA employees in Gaza , many of whom were later shown to have links to Hamas and other terrorist organizations, while continuing to manage facilities that provide terrorist groups with access to students, infrastructure, and institutional legitimacy. The letter states that these facts are reasonable grounds to investigate whether Lazzarini knowingly facilitated or provided material support and assistance to individuals and entities involved in terrorism, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. UN Watch called on Guterres to publicly waive, without delay, any applicable immunity and to guarantee the full cooperation of the United Nations in a criminal investigation.

Featured in Israel Netz, “Report: UNESCO Declared Terrorists to Be Journalists,” July 15, 2026:

UN Watch accuses UNESCO of falsely classifying slain terrorists as journalists. According to the organization, the United Nations cultural agency persisted with these incorrect identifications even after terrorist groups like Hamas admitted that the individuals in question were active members of their military wing.

Quoted in JNS, “A Tsunami of Lies,” July 23, 2026:

Pointing out that Mamdani could be denaturalized and deported, the head of UN Watch, Hillel Neuer, has said that the U.S. Department of Justice should investigate evidence that before becoming an American citizen in 2018 he “knowingly provided funds or services to Hamas or another terrorist group—and concealed this from immigration authorities.”

Featured in J Wire, “Bondi Survivor Warns UN: Unchecked Antisemitism Leads to Violence,” July 2, 2026:

Speaking on behalf of UN Watch and AIJAC, Ostrovsky said he had travelled from Sydney not to seek sympathy but to warn the international community about the consequences of failing to confront antisemitism. He was attending a Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach with his family on December 14, 2025, when gunmen opened fire on the crowd. Fifteen people, including a 10-year-old girl, were killed and more than 40 were injured. Ostrovsky was shot in the head as he ran towards his family.

Quoted in the South African Jewish Report, “UN Health Rapporteur Returns to a Legal Fight,” July 2, 2026:

But her farewell was overshadowed by a stinging intervention from accountability organisation UN Watch. Addressing the UNHRC, its executive director, Hillel Neuer, accused Mofokeng of having “praised Hamas, promoted prostitution in Teen Vogue, and called [former] British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ‘filthy’”. His remarks followed the release of UN Watch’s latest report, “From Watchdogs to Ideologues”, which argues that a growing number of UN Special Rapporteurs have abandoned impartiality in favour of political activism.

Featured in Contado Estrelas, “Nicaragua as a Warning: When Communism Comes to Power, Democracy Disappears,” July 21, 2026:

In fact, as Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, reminded us today, Nicaragua currently chairs the committee that oversees the work of all UN-accredited human rights NGOs. For those who don’t understand what this means, let me simply say that the UN has entrusted a dictatorship with overseeing the work of organizations dedicated to protecting human rights. It is utterly grotesque.

Featured in Porta da Estrela, “US Urges Donors to Drop UNRWA Funding as UN Defends Agency’s Mission,” July 8, 2026:

The funding dispute comes as UN Watch is calling on Guterres to waive any immunity enjoyed by Lazzarini, whose mandate has expired, so that national authorities can investigate allegations that he ignored repeated warnings about Hamas infiltration .

Featured in JNS, “Student Testimonial: Policy Summit Tops Classroom Test Any Day of the Week,” July 7, 2026:

There were policy forums on a wide range of topics, but I found international legal issues—United Nations, International Criminal Court, International Court of Justice—of particular interest. One panelist, Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, detailed his findings on the corruption of the United Nations and its affiliated organizations, and how, in regard to Israel, procedure is disregarded.

Featured in the South African Jewish Report, “Complaint Filed at UN Over EFF Mayoral Candidate,” July 30, 2026:

The international nongovernmental organisation UN Watch has filed a formal complaint with United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres over Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng’s acceptance of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) candidacy for the mayorship of Johannesburg. UN Watch describes this as a “grave violation and serious misconduct” by Mofokeng, who is still the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health.“A UN expert cannot claim to be independent while standing on a political stage, addressing a party leader as ‘Commander-in-Chief’ and accepting ‘deployment’ as that party’s candidate for one of Africa’s most important mayoralties,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer in an official statement. “This is an open-and-shut conflict of interest that strikes at the credibility of the entire UN human rights system.”

Quoted in the Daily Signal, “‘Cannot Go to Terrorists’: House Ends Taxpayer-Funded Aid to Nigeria Over Christian Genocide,” July 16, 2026:

UN Watch noted that in northwestern Nigeria, armed Islamic criminal groups have taken control of rural areas in states, including Zamfara, Katsina, and Sokoto, carrying out mass kidnappings and extortion in what authorities describe as banditry.

Featured in J Wire, “New Zealand Abstains on UN Rights Chief Reappointment,” July 26, 2026:

In December 2024, Geneva-based NGO UN Watch published a report alleging that Türk had disproportionately focused criticism on Israel while failing to speak out consistently against serious human rights abuses committed by a number of authoritarian regimes. The report analysed official discretionary statements issued during his first two years in office and argued that his public record reflected significant selectivity.

Quoted in the South African Jewish Report, “SAFI Demands Government Condemns Hamas,” July 16, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said the statement was “an important and overdue admission by the UN”. He told the SA Jewish Report, “Hamas is not only terrorising Israelis. It is also terrorising Palestinians and the humanitarian workers delivering aid.”

Featured in Sene News, “UN: Macky Sall’s Controversial Record at the Heart of a UN Watch Report,” July 22, 2026:

A few months before the selection of the tenth Secretary-General of the United Nations, the non-governmental organization UN Watch published a critical analysis of the six candidates in the running. While all are the subject of harsh criticism, the time former Senegalese President Macky Sall held in power raises particular questions about his relationship with fundamental freedoms.

Quoted in Hromadske, “France Says ‘World No Longer Listens to US’ After Controversial UN Vote,” July 26, 2026:

Turk is known as an outspoken critic of Russia’s war against Ukraine and Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip. At the same time, Human Rights Watch and UN Watch have criticized him for being “selective” and “ignoring” rights abuses in China, Cuba, North Korea, Eritrea, Algeria, Qatar, etc.

Quoted in Hidabroot, “Report Claims Seven Gaza ‘Journalists’ Cited by UNESCO Were Terror Operatives,” July 9, 2026:

UNESCO is now being called upon to retract its misclassification of the operatives as journalists and to launch an independent investigation into the matter. Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, stated: “When a UN agency publicly memorializes terror operatives as journalists — and fails to correct the record even after Hamas itself acknowledges they were its members — it undermines the credibility of the United Nations and damages the integrity of real journalists who risk their lives reporting from conflict zones.”

Featured in Neokohn, “Shame: UNESCO mourned Palestinian terrorists as ‘Gaza journalists,'” July 9, 2026:

UN Watch, a non-governmental organization that monitors the activities of the UN, published its new report in Geneva titled “UNESCO’s Misclassification: The Representation of Terrorist Activists as Journalists in Gaza.” The organization documents recurring cases where UNESCO publicly identified Palestinian terrorists , Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad activists, as “journalists killed in Gaza,” despite these organizations later admitting that the individuals involved were members of their military wings, Israel Hayom reports.

Featured in Israel Today, “UN Caught Labeling Terrorists as Journalists,” July 9, 2026:

According to research released by UN Watch, UNESCO repeatedly identified members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as “journalists” after they were killed during the war—despite later evidence confirming their involvement in terrorist organizations.

Quoted in Israel 365 News, “Hamas Terrorists Storm UN Food Warehouse and Assault Aid Workers as Ceasefire Obligations Go Unmet,” July 15, 2026:

UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer called those firings “a drop in the ocean,” estimating that roughly 1,500 Hamas members remain on the UN payroll, drawing salaries funded in large part by American and other Western donors. UNRWA leadership has previously acknowledged that Hamas members are on staff and has stated it does not regard that as a violation.

Quoted in O Antagonista, “Crusoe: UN Watch Wants to Revoke Immunity of Former Agency Head for Palestinians,” July 10, 202:

Hillel Neuer, director of UN Watch, stated that Lazzarini and senior UNRWA officials maintained links with the terrorist group Hamas. “For years, we repeatedly warned Mr. Lazzarini that Hamas had infiltrated deep within UNRWA. We provided detailed evidence identifying teachers, school principals, union leaders, and other officials linked to Hamas. We documented repeated meetings between senior UNRWA officials—including Mr. Lazzarini himself—and leaders of Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Even so, he continued to assure governments that UNRWA’s neutrality mechanisms were effective, while overseeing an agency whose personnel, facilities, and resources were being exploited by terrorist groups.”

Featured in Audiatur Online, “The dubious ‘human rights experts’ of the UN,” July 5, 2026:

What many of these UN special rapporteurs do could hardly be more reprehensible: Almost all of them harbor what UN Watch calls a “systemic anti-Western ideological bias,” many explicitly refrain from criticizing the world’s most authoritarian states, and they are obsessed with demonizing Israel. Many of them have been bought off by the world’s most authoritarian states.

Featured in JForum, “Regarding the UN’s human rights ‘experts’?,” July 5, 2026:

Lord Alton of Liverpool, chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, challenged the British government on the report’s damning findings concerning the 13 UN Special Rapporteurs and on its support for UN Watch’s calls to hold them accountable and prohibit all external funding to them.

The post UN Watch in the News — July 2026 appeared first on UN Watch.

Appeared on Sky News Australia, June 23, 2026: 

Key Quote:

Ben Saul claims to be an independent expert. This is a law professor at the University of Sydney who has a position on human rights and counter-terrorism, and he’s called an independent expert. I want to know: How can you be an independent expert while you’re receiving $150,000 from the Chinese Communist regime? Now, let me be clear. No one’s claiming that it’s going into his own pocket to buy a Ferrari or what have you, but it’s going to his office. This is the same office that has never condemned China for putting a million Uyghurs into camps under the pretext of counter-terrorism, which is the very issue he’s supposed to be addressing. When countries abuse human rights in the name of counter-terrorism, Professor Ben Saul is supposed to speak out. Yet when it comes to China—the one giving him $150,000 a year—he is silent.

Appeared on i24 News, June 18, 2026: 

Key Quote:

This is a significant legal victory. Francesca Albanese is someone who, as you indicated, openly supports Hamas terrorism. Back in 2014, she was calling them “resistance.” As you said on October 7th, she defended their actions, saying that there was context to justify it. She’s been condemned for a Holocaust inversion by the Canadian Government — which normally supports the UN very strongly, rarely criticizes experts. France and Germany have condemned her for antisemitism. The Netherlands last year said she should not be renewed because she had violated the UN Code of Conduct. So this is someone who is subverting human rights, who supports terrorism, who incites antisemitism around the world with the blood libel accusing Israel of genocide. She’s the leader of that. She’s now been condemned, you could say, by the U.S. Appeals Court. For the sanctions, she tried to get them lifted. She did win a temporary victory in the lower court in the U.S. District of Columbia, but the appeals court, three judges have overturned that. And for now, for the duration of the appeal, which could last months or even longer, these sanctions are enforced. It sends an important message.

Featured in the Daily Mail, “Appalling Reaction of UN ‘Expert on Violence Against Women’ as Female October 7 Survivor Blasts Her for Denying Hamas Rapes,” June 25, 2026:

A United Nations expert on violence offered a shocking reaction when a female October 7 survivor confronted her for denying Hamas’ rapes after she detailed her own sexual abuse at the hands of the terrorist group. “On October 7, terrorists stormed our Kibbutz, murdering, kidnapping and burning,’ Gritzewsky said. ‘They touched me and sexually abused me.” Gritzewsky, who was brought to the floor by watchdog nongovernmental organization UN Watch, added that she had been sexually assaulted by at least seven Hamas terrorists.

Featured in the National Post, “‘Please Look at Me’: Former Israeli Hostage Demands of UN Adviser on Violence Against Women,” June 25, 2026:

It is a tragedy in its own right that Ilana Gritzewsky, a liberated Israeli hostage whom Hamas abused sexually, had to confront the United Nations expert on violence against women, according to Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. “It’s absolutely horrible that this should have to be the case,” Neuer told JNS on Wednesday, the day after Gritzewsky appeared before the U.N. Human Rights Council to address Reem Alsalem, special rapporteur on violence against women and girls. “It’s absolutely absurd and tragic that there are U.N. experts who are supposed to care about the rights of women, especially to combat sexual violence, and she’s one of the world’s major deniers of sexual violence against Israeli women,” Neuer said.

Quoted in the Washington Examiner, “UN’s Albanese Faces Uphill Battle With First Amendment Case Seeking to End Sanctions Against Her,” June 19, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, executive director of the nonprofit organization U.N. Watch in Switzerland, has made it his mission to call attention to Albanese and oust her. He claims she has abused the position by turning it into a vehicle of celebrity and hysteria. “Historically, [rapporteurs] would write two reports a year, maybe issue a few press releases, and it was kind of a quiet job,” Neuer told the Washington Examiner, explaining that the age of social media “changed everything” about the position. “She’s tweeting every five minutes, every Hamas lie about Israel … she just repeats it. And so she’s hyperactive, doing all this stuff in the name of the U.N.” “From her standpoint, she benefits from the incredible imprimatur to be a U.N. expert,” Neuer continued. “She can tell the world that she is the U.N. special rapporteur in Palestine. She suddenly benefits from immunity. She gets various U.N. documents that won’t call her an employee, but basically call her some kind of an official. … She gets to issue press releases on the U.N. stationery and issue U.N. reports.”

Quoted in the National Post, “Facts, Persuasion Are Powerful Tools Against Israel Haters, Advocate Says,” June 4, 2026:

Hillel Neuer: It is easier said than done, but if you have friends who are going to ostracize you because you told the truth — because you contested the manufactured blood libel that Israel commits genocide, and that whoever supports Israel is somehow a supporter of baby-killing — then they are not really your friends and you are better off without them. Certainly, in my own experience, I have been in a hostile atmosphere for two decades. But with the contempt and hatred I get from those who have become apologists for the Islamic regime in Iran, I also get support, encouragement, and admiration from amazing people around the world. It may be difficult at first to be ostracized, but you will earn respect from morally principled, good people. They may be fewer — but better to have a few good people than a majority of fake friends.

Quoted in the National Post, “Michael Higgins: Anita Anand Ignores UN’s Terrorist Ties, Gives It More Money,” June 16, 2026:

In a statement, Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, an organization that has reported UNRWA’s ties to Hamas, said the firings were a “small beginning.” But he also noted the UN’s “incoherent” position. “Firing people while refusing to acknowledge why reveals an institution still more interested in protecting itself and its Hamas-embedded workforce than in genuine neutrality or accountability.”

Featured in Sky News Australia, “‘Sickening misuse of taxes’: October 7 fallout deepens as UNRWA purge expands,” June 16, 2026:

The UN has announced that 70 UNRWA workers have been dismissed, fired from the aid agency, after accusations from Israel and the UN Watch organisation that they were affiliated with Hamas.

Quoted in the Sunday Times, “Ignore the Howls, the East Mids Are Perfect for Nuclear Experiments,” June 6, 2026:

The latest report from UN Watch stars the deranged Canadian academic Michael Fakhri, who thinks Venezuela is a paragon of governmental excellence while Canada is pursuing vendettas against its own people. Or there is Alena Douhan, a Belarusian looking into whether sanctions against authoritarian regimes are doing a great deal of good. She believes they are not — yes, yes, I know. But at least the funding pouring into her capacious pockets from Russian, Chinese and Qatari state donors must mitigate any qualms she might have about her independence: £1 million at the latest count.

Quoted in the National Post, “Michael Higgins: Anita Anand Ignores UN’s Terrorist Ties, Gives It More Money,” June 16, 2026:

In a statement, Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, an organization that has reported UNRWA’s ties to Hamas, said the firings were a “small beginning.” But he also noted the UN’s “incoherent” position. “Firing people while refusing to acknowledge why reveals an institution still more interested in protecting itself and its Hamas-embedded workforce than in genuine neutrality or accountability.”

Featured in Ynet News, “‘Please Look at Me’: Ex-Hostage Confronts UN Official Over Silence on Hamas Sexual Violence,” June 23, 2026:

She was accompanied in Geneva by Meirav Lapidot, who has tried to shield her as much as possible from shocks and triggers. The two were brought to the UN by UN Watch, the Geneva-based organization founded in 1993 that monitors whether UN debates and decisions align with the world body’s own founding principles. UN Watch has long criticized what it describes as the disproportionate amount of time and number of resolutions the UN devotes to Israel compared with the rest of the world. Since the Human Rights Council was established in 2006 and through the end of 2025, it has issued 112 condemnations of Israel, slightly fewer than half the condemnations issued against all other countries combined.

Featured in the Jerusalem Post, “Former Hostage Condemns UN Special Rapporteur’s Silence on Hamas’s October 7 Sexual Violence,” June 24, 2026:

Former Gaza hostage Ilana Gritzewsky took the floor at the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday in order to confront the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women for her minimization of sexual violence used against victims on October 7, 2023. “Your report speaks about violence against women. Why is there no mention of Hamas?” Gritzewsky, who was speaking for the watchdog NGO UN Watch. demanded from the Special Rapporteur, Reem Alsalem.

Featured in The Daily Wire, “Watch U.N. Official’s Sickening Reaction To Oct. 7 Survivor,” June 25, 2026:

The confrontation laid bare a record that is nothing short of a scandal. As U.N. Watch noted, Alsalem publicly declared last November that “no independent investigation found that rape took place on October 7” — a claim directly contradicted by a U.N. report issued months earlier that found reasonable grounds to believe Hamas committed sexual violence during the attack, with an even higher evidentiary threshold met for assaults on hostages held in captivity. As recently as April 2026, she was still dismissing survivor testimony as “misinformation” deployed to “justify genocide against Palestinians.”

Featured in Ynet News, “Author of Oct. 7 Sexual Violence Report Tells UN: ‘You Abandoned the Victims,’” June 25, 2026:

Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, chair of the Civil Commission on Oct. 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children, delivered a speech Wednesday at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, where she presented the findings of the commission’s report on the sexual crimes committed by Hamas during the massacre and in captivity. Elkayam-Levy came to the UN at the invitation of UN Watch, a Geneva-based organization founded in 1993 that serves as a UN watchdog.

Featured in i24 News, “Former Hostage Ilana Gritzewsky at the UN: “Why This Silence? I Am Living Proof of Hamas’s Sexual Crimes,” June 23, 2026:

Invited to Geneva by the non-governmental organization UN Watch, based in Switzerland and specializing in monitoring the activities of the United Nations, Ilana Gritzewvsky directly challenged the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, accusing her of ignoring the suffering of the Israeli victims of October 7…The event also sparked criticism of certain reports presented to the Human Rights Council. Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Daniel Maron, denounced what he called a minimization of the crimes committed on October 7. For his part, Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, accused certain international bodies of silencing the voices of Israeli victims.

Featured in the Jerusalem Post, “Civil Commission Chair Presents Oct. 7 Sexual Violence Report to UN, Calls for Recognition,” June 27, 2026:

Executive Director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer echoed Elkayam-Levy’s concern and condemnation of the UN’s double standard. “Israeli victims did not receive compassion or protection from this system. Instead, they were exposed to the hatred that rages throughout the world and to the institutions that enable it,” Neuer said. “The question now is whether the United Nations will finally apply the same standards of compassion, credibility, and accountability to Israeli victims that it demands for every other victim of sexual violence,” Neur stated.

Featured in The Spectator, “No, Israel Isn’t ‘Deliberately Targeting’ Children in Gaza,” June 24, 2026:

The UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry has published a 94-page paper claiming Israel “deliberately targeted” Palestinian children during the war in the Gaza Strip – language implying war crimes and crimes against humanity. These are among the most serious charges in international law. So you would expect, at minimum, one clearly documented case: a soldier who identified a child as a child, and killed that child for no reason other than that they were a child. After 94 pages, the Commission cannot produce one. What it produces instead, according to a detailed rebuttal by the watchdog UN Watch, is a chain of assumptions dressed up as findings.

Featured in the Times of Israel, “Ex-Hostage to UN Official Who Doubted Oct. 7 Rape: ‘I Am Living Proof’ of Hamas Sexual Violence,” June 23, 2026:

Gritzewsky was invited to testify before the council by UN Watch, a pro-Israel NGO that monitors the world body. The organization’s executive director, Hillel Neuer, told The Times of Israel that it invited her to speak to the council because Alsalem “only comes for a debate once a year — and it was vital to invite a survivor to confront this serial denier with the truth.” He noted that Gritzewsky spoke directly after Alsalem presented a report on violence against mothers, which discussed the two-year war in Gaza but did not mention October 7. “Ilana displayed immense courage by standing at the United Nations, reliving the most traumatic moments of her captivity in front of the very official who had denied the sexual violence she endured,” Neuer said.

Featured in JNS, “UN Watch Chief Seeks Indictment of UNRWA Head,” June 22, 2026:

The executive director of U.N. Watch on Monday called for the indictment of Philippe Lazzarini, the outgoing commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East ( UNRWA), accusing him of crimes against humanity over the agency’s alleged role in enabling and perpetuating Hamas terrorism. Speaking at the second JNS International Policy Summit in Jerusalem, Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based watchdog organization, argued that UNRWA had become deeply intertwined with Hamas and should be held accountable for its actions and failures. “For years, UNRWA has been funded by Western governments—the European Union, Canada, Australia and others—with millions of dollars,” he said. “Yet it has not resettled a single Palestinian refugee. Its structure perpetuates the conflict rather than resolves it.”

Quoted in i24 News, “At the UN, the Author of the October 7 Report on Sexual Violence Denounces ‘Abandoned Victims,'” June 24, 2026:

Also present at the session, Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, criticized the attitude of certain UN bodies. “The victims of October 7th deserve the same recognition, the same compassion, and the same justice as all other victims of sexual violence,” he declared, asserting that “human rights cannot be selective.”

Featured in Exxpress, “The Propaganda Scandal Surrounding the UN Special Rapporteur,” June 29, 2026:

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has 59 UN Special Rapporteurs who address specific issues—such as food security—or the human rights situation in individual countries. However, many abuse their mandates to spread propaganda for dictatorships and attack democracies. They simultaneously receive funding from Moscow, Beijing, Qatar, or from left-wing organizations like George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. This is the conclusion of a 100-page report by a Geneva-based NGO that aims to measure the work of the United Nations against the principles of the UN Charter. “Whenever a UN expert publishes a report, it can influence international courts, media, universities, and other institutions,” explains Hillel Neuer, director of UN-Watch. “Although their findings are not necessarily legally binding, they can significantly shape public opinion. Their reports influence discussions within the UN; they influence the way governments act.”

Quoted in JNS, “The Most Important Thing That Can Be Done Is Sanctions by the United States,” June 24, 2026:

International human rights lawyer Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, agreed on the importance of “showing up and making the case.” “The United Nations, despite its obsession, its pathological obsession, with demonizing the world’s only Jewish state, is a global podium. In general, there is no magic bullet on how to confront this global demonization. And being at the UN offers opportunities,” he said, citing several examples of his activism at the world body.

Featured in the Forward, “‘There Was a Campaign’: UN Torture Official Says Colleagues Tried to Block Her Letter Documenting Oct. 7 Atrocities,” June 25, 2026:

A day earlier, Ilana Gritzewsky, a survivor of Hamas captivity who has spoken publicly about experiencing sexual violence, took the floor in Geneva, where she confronted Alsalem during a live testimony in an emotional appeal. “Ms. Alsalem, you said there was no evidence of sexual violence on October 7,” she said. “I am the living proof of sexual violence by Hamas. When I and other Israeli women begged not to be raped, why were you silent?” Both women were brought to the United Nations to speak by the Geneva-based NGO UN Watch.

Featured in Maariv, “I Returned From the Depths of Death”: Yazidi Captivity Survivor Reveals the Nightmare in Gaza,” June 29, 2026: 

The person who brought Amin Sido to the UN building was Hillel Neuer , executive director of UN Watch. “Survivors deserve a voice,” he explains, “especially in institutions that often prefer political narratives to inconvenient truths. No diplomat’s speech can match the moral authority of a survivor who has experienced firsthand the consequences of hatred, bigotry, and terrorism – which the UN has too often failed to confront.”

Quoted in Opindia, “UN Special Rapporteur Found to Be Under China’s Payroll,” June 27, 2026:

A recent report of the UN Watch has accused the United Nations Special Rapporteur on counterterrorism, Ben Saul, of ideological bias and conflicts of interest. The report reveals that Saul has been receiving funding from the Chinese government. According to Sky News, the report of the Geneva-based group also states that Saul has an anti-Western and anti-Israel bias. It points out that Saul has condemned the killing of the terrorist leader Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri, who was a senior member of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. “He’s not supposed to be an activist; he’s supposed to be an academic. We’re supposed to see scholarship,” UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer said, speaking to Sky News.

Featured in Israel National News, “Former Hostage Ilana Gritzewsky Confronts UN: “Why Were You Silent?” June 23, 2026:

Alsalem’s report to the council mentioned “Palestinian suffering” 11 times but did not include a single reference to the atrocities of October 7 or the hardships faced by Israeli civilians. UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer criticized the report, saying, “There is something absurd about the fact that the UN envoy responsible for combating violence against women has produced a document that erases Hamas’ victims.

Featured in News Ghana, “Yazidi Survivor’s UN Plea Exposes Global Hypocrisy,” June 27, 2026:

Sido testified at a UN Watch side event during the 62nd session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. She was joined by Marzieh Hamidi, an Afghan-Iranian taekwondo champion who called on the international community to stop diplomatic normalisation with the Taliban, and Dr Cochav Elkayam-Levy, who presented findings on Hamas’s sexual crimes during the October 7, 2023 attacks.

 Featured in Enlace Judio, “Ilana Gritzewsky’s Forceful Denunciation of the UN’s Silence,” June 24, 2026:

Gritzewsky was accompanied by Merav Lapidot , and both were brought to the session by UN Watch , a Geneva -based organization that monitors the activities and resolutions of the United Nations. The organization highlights what it describes as a persistent anti-Israel bias, noting that between 2006 and 2025, the Human Rights Council adopted 112 resolutions condemning Israel , nearly half of all specific condemnations issued against the rest of the world combined during that period.

Featured in Bet Magazine Mosaico, “The UN Accuses Israel of Genocide Against Gaza’s Children. Israel Rejects the Report and Denounces a “Biased” Commission,” June 24, 2026:

Accusations of bias don’t just come from Israel. The organization UN Watch , led by Hillel Neuer, has been denouncing the composition of the UN Commission on the Palestinian Territories for years. In a recent analysis, UN Watch argues that even after the commission’s renewal, its work continues to display “a persistent anti-Israel bias.” According to the organization, over half of the report’s focus is on alleged Israeli violations, while only a small portion concerns Palestinian attacks against Israelis. UN Watch has also challenged in the past the appointment of members who had already expressed very harsh judgments on the conflict before even taking on the role of investigators.

Quoted in J-Wire, “Israeli Investigator Challenges UN Over Response to Hamas Sexual Violence,” June 25, 2026:

UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said the survivor’s testimony and the commission’s report provided both a personal account and a wider body of evidence. “Yesterday, a survivor spoke. Today, the lead investigator presented the evidence,” Neuer said. “The question is no longer whether these crimes occurred. The evidence is overwhelming. “The question now is whether the United Nations will finally apply the same standards of compassion, credibility and accountability to Israeli victims that it demands for every other victim of sexual violence.”

Featured in Matzav, “UN Watch Chief: Anti-Israel Bias at UN Has Reached Unprecedented Levels Since October 7,” June 25, 2026:

Speaking with Arutz Sheva on the sidelines of the JNS International Policy Conference in Jerusalem, Neuer looked back on more than 20 years of monitoring the United Nations and said the organization’s treatment of Israel has deteriorated even further in the aftermath of the Hamas attack. When asked whether the fight against anti-Israel bias at the UN has become more difficult, Neuer responded, “It’s hard to imagine, but the pathological UN, which obsesses over Israel, got even so much worse after October 7th, in particular because of Antonio Guterres.”

The post UN Watch in the News — June 2026 appeared first on UN Watch.

UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer appeared on Sky News Australia with Caroline Marcus to discuss Ben Saul and other anti-Western UN ‘experts’ funded by China, the sanctions against antisemitic UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese, and UNRWA’s recent firing of 70 employees with terror ties.

Caroline Marcus: Australian professor Ben Saul, who serves as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism, has been accused of ideological bias and conflicts of interest in a new report from the Geneva-based group UN Watch, which pointed out that the Chinese government is one of his biggest funders.

The report goes on to accuse Professor Saul of repeatedly demonstrating a deep-seated anti-Western and anti-Israel bias. Professor Saul has condemned the killing of the then most senior leader of the terror group Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was one of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists, calling his assassination in a U.S. drone strike unlawful. He has also called the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani illegal and criticized President Trump’s designation of the Houthis as a terrorist organization, saying it could disrupt peace efforts.

Again, he’s meant to be the Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism. I spoke to UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer a little earlier, and I began by asking him why he thinks the funding from the Chinese government may compromise Professor Saul.

Hillel Neuer: Ben Saul claims to be an independent expert. This is a law professor at the University of Sydney who has a position on human rights and counter-terrorism, and he’s called an independent expert. I want to know: How can you be an independent expert while you’re receiving $150,000 from the Chinese Communist regime?

Now, let me be clear. No one’s claiming that it’s going into his own pocket to buy a Ferrari or what have you, but it’s going to his office. This is the same office that has never condemned China for putting a million Uyghurs into camps under the pretext of counter-terrorism, which is the very issue he’s supposed to be addressing.

When countries abuse human rights in the name of counter-terrorism, Professor Ben Saul is supposed to speak out. Yet when it comes to China—the one giving him $150,000 a year—he is silent.

Caroline Marcus: What about his past statements about the U.S. and Israel in particular? What does this show about his fitness to hold this role as Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism?

Hillel Neuer: Well, Professor Ben Saul has made extremist statements that manifest a distinct anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-Israel ideology. Those views often go together among many radical left activists. He’s not supposed to be an activist. He’s supposed to be an academic. We’re supposed to see scholarship from a UN rapporteur. He’s supposed to engage in rigorous corroboration of facts.

Instead, you get these adolescent-style tweets: “We’re going to arrest the U.S. president for murder. We’re going to arrest the U.S. secretary of defense for murder.” He echoes the pro-Hamas narrative when it comes to Israel. That is not what the United Nations Charter was about. The UN Charter was about defeating Hitler. It’s the anti-Hitler alliance. It’s about international peace and security.

UN experts should be the first to oppose Hamas terrorists, the first to oppose the Islamic regime in Iran. Yet Ben Saul seems to echo the narrative of the Islamic regime in Iran and its terrorist proxies.

Caroline Marcus: And those comments about the president and secretary of defense were about the U.S. war on drug trafficking in Venezuela. But you’re right, Hillel. It seems totally in line with what we hear from a lot of academics—which he is as well—at the University of Sydney. What can be done about this?

The UN seems to have stuck by its rapporteurs. The UN human rights chief said—and I presume this was about the UN Watch report—that “efforts to intimidate, discredit, or even sanction UN human rights experts are unacceptable.” How do you respond to that? Do you accept that your report is an effort to intimidate these rapporteurs?

Hillel Neuer: No—unless people believe that scrutiny and issuing a 100-page report with hundreds of footnotes constitutes intimidation, which is absurd. It’s not appropriate language for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. I’m disappointed in Mr. Volker Türk, who gave a speech last week where he called our report disinformation.

What’s notable is that he did not make a single response or rebuttal to any of the points. Those points include Ben Saul receiving $150,000 from China. Alena Douhan, the UN expert on coercive measures—which means sanctions—received $1.3 million for her office from China, Russia, and Qatar. Another gentleman, George Katrougalos, who chairs the Human Rights Council’s expert mechanism and serves as the Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order—which essentially means that the West is unfair to the rest of the world, a mandate created by Cuba and other countries—received $100,000 for his office from China in the same year that he appeared at an event in Athens promoting a book by Xi Jinping.

You couldn’t make this up if you wanted to. There’s not a single word of rebuttal from the UN other than to say—when they have no answer, which is their modus operandi—that it’s disinformation.

Caroline Marcus: But what can people do to voice their concerns about how the rapporteurs are conducting themselves?

Hillel Neuer: Sadly, we have been calling for the UN to hold these rogue rapporteurs accountable, and they have failed to do so. There’s the famous case, of course, of Francesca Albanese, who routinely spouts the latest Hamas lies, saying that hundreds of thousands of children have been killed. The numbers she cites are larger than the total number of children in Gaza.

She makes many wild accusations. She has been condemned for antisemitism by France, Germany, Canada, the United States, and many other countries. She is the first UN rapporteur ever to receive such condemnations, and yet the UN wouldn’t do a thing. Secretary-General Guterres refused to act. The United States sent letters, and they didn’t do anything.

So it is incumbent upon our democracies to act. And if our governments fail to act, then we as citizens need to speak out. We need to demand that our universities stop legitimizing these people. Albanese, for example, has received honorary doctorates from three different universities from  Belgium. That’s shameful. I think civil society should speak out and hold them to account.

Caroline Marcus: Speaking of Francesca Albanese, the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals has temporarily reinstated sanctions against her following allegations that she was running an illegitimate campaign of economic and political warfare against the U.S. and Israel. Tell us more about this case and why you think the sanctions should remain in place.

Hillel Neuer:  Well, look, she is the first UN rapporteur in history—we’re talking about more than 80 years of UN history—to have been condemned by countries such as France, Germany, Canada, and the Netherlands for violating the UN Code of Conduct, spreading antisemitism, and engaging in Holocaust inversion.

She says America is controlled by the Jewish lobby. She compares Israeli leaders to Nazi Germany. This is routine behavior, and it brings the United Nations into disrepute. She must be held accountable. The UN has failed to do so.

The only government that has taken concrete action is the United States. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions against Albanese on July 9, 2025. She herself describes them as devastating. She says she can no longer use a bank card, make payments, receive payments, or enter the United States.

The sanctions are very significant, and they send a message to the UN that if you support terrorists, spread racism, hate, and antisemitism, you will pay a price. She tried to fight the sanctions. She had her husband and minor daughter file a lawsuit in the United States. As you indicated, the U.S. Court of Appeals has, for now, left the sanctions in place.

Caroline Marcus:  And finally, staying on the topic of Palestinians, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, has fired 70 Gaza staff members following long-standing claims from Israel that they had ties to Hamas. UNRWA insists the decision is not an admission of guilt, but rather one taken, quote, “to mitigate safety and security risks for the refugees the agency serves.”

Hillel, UNRWA has had to let staff go before after evidence emerged that some had actually participated in the October 7 attacks. What do you make of how the agency has framed this latest round of dismissals?

Hillel Neuer: Well, look, we welcome the firing of 70 UNRWA staff members over terror ties, although the agency won’t exactly acknowledge that, as you indicated. Obviously, that’s what’s going on here. But it’s a drop in the bucket. It’s too little and too late.

This is an agency that began with altruistic motives to help Arabs who were displaced in the conflict of 1948 and 1949. Yet very quickly it became a pathological agency. It hasn’t resettled a single Palestinian in more than 75 years. It has received billions of dollars from taxpayers in Australia, Canada, the United States, and Europe—billions of dollars—and has not resettled a single refugee.

That is absurd. Instead, the agency perpetuates dependency. It continues to classify Palestinians as refugees even when they have lived for decades in Arab countries and, in many cases, have citizenship. In Jordan, many Palestinians have citizenship and are still considered refugees. The notion of a “citizen refugee” is absurd.

.@SkyNewsAust: “Ben Saul has been singled out by Geneva-based UN Watch in a damning new report, accusing him of demonstrating a deep-seated anti-Western and anti-Israel bias. The report alleges that Saul's one-sided pattern is underscored by the $150,000 he received from China.” pic.twitter.com/HKdbtwOrlp

— UN Watch (@UNWatch) June 23, 2026

The post Hillel Neuer on Sky News Australia: China-Funded UN ‘Experts’ Target the West appeared first on UN Watch.

UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer was interviewed on i24 News about a recent U.S. Appeals Court decision to reinstate the sanctions against Francesca Albanese.

Bianca Zanini, i24 News: A U.S. federal court of appeals has reinstated sanctions against UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who’s repeatedly been accused of antisemitism and anti-Israel activism for years. Albanese has used her position to accuse Israel of apartheid and genocide, saying things like the October 7 victims of the Hamas onslaught were killed “in response to Israeli oppression.”

Last year, she was charged with running an illegitimate campaign of economic and political warfare against the U.S. and Israel — Albanese were slapped with economic and travel sanctions. They were lifted last month by a judge and now temporarily reinstated by the Federal Court of Appeals, while litigation on her case proceeds.

And for more on this, we are joined by Hillel Neuer, the Executive Director of the United Nations Watch. Thank you so much for joining us. UN Watch has publicly welcomed this latest judge’s decision, why?

Hillel Neuer: This is a significant legal victory. Francesca Albanese is someone who, as you indicated, openly supports Hamas terrorism. Back in 2014, she was calling them “resistance.” As you said on October 7th, she defended their actions, saying that there was context to justify it.

She’s been condemned for a Holocaust inversion by the Canadian Government — which normally supports the UN very strongly, rarely criticizes experts.  France and Germany have condemned her for antisemitism. The Netherlands last year said she should not be renewed because she had violated the UN Code of Conduct.

So this is someone who is subverting human rights, who supports terrorism, who incites antisemitism around the world with the blood libel accusing Israel of genocide. She’s the leader of that. She’s now been condemned, you could say, by the U.S. Appeals Court. For the sanctions, she tried to get them lifted. She did win a temporary victory in the lower court in the U.S. District of Columbia, but the appeals court, three judges have overturned that. And for now, for the duration of the appeal, which could last months or even longer, these sanctions are enforced. It sends an important message.

Bianca Zanini, i24 News: The UN has been accused generally of pervasive antisemitism in its halls. How does a case like this, and a decision like this, help fight that, if at all?

Hillel Neuer: Well, it sends an important message, because you know our organization, as well as several states, appealed to the United Nations, urged them to take responsibility. You have someone who is systematically breaching the UN Code of Conduct, which calls for impartiality, objectivity, tells them to check their facts. She doesn’t check any facts. She shares the most absurd, wild Hamas lies. She shares them all the time without any verification.

The UN refused to do a thing. Secreatry-General António Guterres refused to do a thing, and so the U.S. was the only one to take meaningful action with the sanctions. It sends a message, and we know that the moment the sanctions were announced on July 9 this past summer, a few days later, the Commission of Inquiry, which targets Israel, several of their leaders resigned, and it was reported that one of them, Navi Pillay, who was the chair of the inquiry, resigned because she had close family members in the U.S. and didn’t want to get sanctioned herself.

So it sends an important message. There’s a chilling effect against bad actors, and that needs to be maintained.

Bianca Zanini, i24 News: For those saying that this essentially is punishing someone for speaking up against the U.S. government and against Israel, what do you have to say to that?

Hillel Neuer: Well, the Executive Order signed by the President deals with actions, and she was actively encouraging the ICC — through briefs and other actions — to engage in targeting, weaponizing the ICC against Israel. So, these are actions, and they can be legitimately targeted. The judges who wrote the opinion of the appeals court said that she does not enjoy the First Amendment in this case, and certainly, as someone who fuels antisemitism, who supports terrorism, it’s a good thing that she be punished.

The post Hillel Neuer on i24 News: Francesca Albanese Defeated In Major Battle at U.S. Court of Appeals appeared first on UN Watch.

UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer appeared on FDD’s Foreign Podicy with Cliff May to share UN Watch’s latest report “From Watchdogs To Ideologues” — exposing ideological bias, foreign funding, and ethical misconduct among the UN’s so-called independent human rights experts.

Highlights:

Cliff May: Hillel, you’ve got this new 104-page report. Tell us about what’s inside.

Hillel Neuer: If you open up a newspaper on any given day in major media, whether it’s The New York Times, whether it’s Reuters, you’re going to see UN experts said, UN experts said America is violating international law because they attacked Iranian nuclear weapons facilities, because they attacked the Maduro regime in Venezuela, because America is racist.

This is the kind of thing you will see almost every day. UN experts said, quoted by the major media in the world. Who are these UN experts? How are they appointed? Who funds them? What is the nature of their activity and are they held accountable? And that’s what our report is.

There’s about 59 of these UN so-called independent human rights experts. There’s 59 different mandates on different themes, violence against women, free speech, different regions. We looked at 20%. So it’s a substantial sample. We looked at 13 of them and we found that nearly all of them are engaged in very extreme anti American agendas, anti Western agendas, anti capitalist far left agendas, and certainly anti Israel.

That is the dominant ethos. If you’re not willing to spread that kind of message, you don’t get appointed to these jobs. It’s the dictatorships that I mentioned, China, Qatar, Cuba, that often sit on the bodies that select the experts.

And I would say you have a very bizarre alliance, a toxic cocktail if you will, between the world’s worst regimes that have power at the un, that elect these people, but then they get legitimized by so called human rights groups, groups like Amnesty International that have a very far left agenda.

And where they come together, where the China, Qatar, Cuba, Pakistan come together with Amnesty International, which are based in London or Human Rights Watch, based in New York, is that they have one thing in common. They both want to spend all their time attacking America, attacking the west, attacking capitalism, attacking Israel, promoting radical agendas.

Cliff May: What can UN Secretary-General António Guterres do or say about it?

Hillel Neuer:  The answer is that legally he doesn’t appoint them and legally they don’t answer to him. And legally he can’t fire them. But he is a Secretary-General of the UN. These rapporteurs get quoted, “as the UN said…,” and so he does have a moral responsibility.

When they bring the United Nations into disrepute, which many of them do, he needs to show leadership because there’s no leadership at the UN. He needs to show leadership, and he has the power to condemn them, which is very significant because their power is the legitimacy of their words.

And when they are out-and-out antisemites, when they are apologists for dictators supporting terrorists, they need to be called out. The world needs to know it. So his predecessors, Ban Ki-moon, condemned UN rapporteurs when there was a nutcase named Richard Falk, who was a major supporter of terrorists and was teaching at Princeton. He supported bomb throwers during the Vietnam War. He supported anyone who was an anti-American terrorist. He supported them.

When Khomeini took over Iran, he wrote an op-ed in The New York Times called Trusting Khomeini. This was his New York Times op-ed. So he was an apologist for dictators, he was a 9/11 truther. He thought that there was reason to believe that America was behind the 9/11 attacks. He’s a nutcase, a supporter of terrorists.

When he gave voice to the 9/11 conspiracy theory, we got then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to condemn him. He said it in print, and he said it in person at the Human Rights Council, and that was important. And to this day, Richard Falk, who’s in his mid-90s at least, lives in Santa Barbara, says he rues the day when the evil group UN Watch got Ban Ki-moon to condemn me. That really mattered.

But Guterres won’t say a word. He can and he should. But he has never condemned Francesca Albanese. He’s never condemned this lady, Alena Douhan, who’s an apologist for the Chinese regime and Iran and others.

He’s never condemned Ben Saul, UN rapporteur on counterterrorism, who took $150,000 from China, who calls for the arrest of President Trump and Secretary of Defense Hegseth for murder. He’s saying this every day. Guterres should condemn these people. He has the power to do that. He’s not doing it.

The post Hillel Neuer Discusses the Broken U.N. System with FDD appeared first on UN Watch.

Appeared on i24 News, May 28, 2026:

Key Quote:

Look, it’s numerous of the so-called UN human rights experts who get quoted every day by Reuters, the New York Times and other major media. We found that a number of them are taking money direct funding from China, Russia and Qatar. I’ll give a few examples. Ben Saul, he’s a law professor at the University of Sydney. According to UN documents in 2024 he received $150,000 from China for his activities. And surprise surprise he’s the expert on counterterrorism. He’s never said a word to condemn China for putting a million Uyghur Muslims into camps in the name of counterterrorism. He hadn’t he hadn’t a word to say about that. Instead, he attacks Israel and America every single day…We need Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Australia not only the U.S. to speak out and call out these UN rapporteurs when they are ideologically captured or when they’re financially corrupt. And we need them to hold them to account. And if it means defunding them sanctioning them that’s what we need to see.

Appeared on i24 France, May 28, 2026:

Key Quote:

This is a very difficult decision by the Secretary-General. It is an inversion of reality. The reality is that on October 7, it was Hamas that committed sexual crimes against Israeli victims, and also afterward in Gaza with the hostages. And there is no evidence that there was an Israeli policy. It is possible that there were certain violations, but in this case, there is no evidence that there was a systematic policy of these abuses. Really, this is an attempt to reverse reality here and make Israel equal to, or even worse than, Hamas. It’s horrible.

Appeared on Foreign Policy, by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, May 29, 2026:

Key Quote:

Who are these UN experts? How are they appointed? Who funds them? What is the nature of their activity? And are they held accountable? And that’s what our report is. There’s about 59 of these UN so-called independent human rights experts. We looked at 20%, so it’s a substantial sample. We looked at 13 of them, and we found that nearly all of them are engaged in very extreme anti-American agendas, anti-Western agendas, anti-capitalist, far-left agendas, and certainly anti-Israel. That is the dominant ethos. If you’re not willing to spread that kind of message, you don’t get appointed to these jobs. It’s the dictatorships that I mentioned- China, Qatar, Cuba- that often sit on the bodies that select the experts. And I would say you have a very bizarre alliance, a toxic cocktail, if you will, between the world’s worst regimes that have power at the UN that elect these people, but then they get legitimized by so-called human rights groups, groups like Amnesty International, that have a very far-left agenda.

Featured in The Telegraph, “Michelle Bachelet Would Be a Calamitous UN Chief,” May 23, 2026:

This week we learnt that the body already criticised for its seeming powerlessness in the face of successive humanitarian crises is considering appointing as its next secretary-general a woman described by UN Watch as “the dictator’s shield”. The campaign group is urging the UN Security Council to block a bid by former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, citing her controversial four-year tenure as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
During that period she remained silent on the mass detention of Uyghurs in China, the poisoning of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, and Iran’s forced hijab laws. “Under Bachelet’s tenure, the office tasked with defending human rights became an office that protected the world’s worst abusers,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. “The next secretary-general must be someone willing to confront dictators, not shield them.”

Featured in the New York Post, “How For-Sale UN “Experts” Weaponize Human Rights to Serve Tyranny,” May 28, 2026:

On Tuesday, the Geneva-based group UN Watch released “From Watchdogs to Ideologues,” a 104-page investigation into 13 of the UN’s 59 Special Rapporteurs — the supposedly independent human-rights monitors whose findings are routinely treated as authoritative by the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, Western governments and Western media. The picture is damning. The office of Alena Douhan, the UN’s rapporteur on “unilateral coercive measures” — whose mandate, in plain English, is to attack Western sanctions on dictators — has accepted $1.3 million from China, Russia and Qatar…As UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer put it, if a judge took $1.3 million from one of the parties in a case, he’d be disqualified on the spot; if a journalist endorsed a terror group on social media, she’d be fired that same afternoon.

Quoted in the National Post, “Mark Carney goes full Laurentian elite with Louise Arbour pick,” May 6, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch accused Arbour of applying double standards. “The problem was that she made no distinction between a terrorist group that every time they hit civilians it’s a victory, as opposed to Israel, which is trying to defend itself from terrorist groups, and every time a civilian is killed as collateral damage, that’s a tragedy,” said Neuer.

Featured in the Washington Examiner, “Every US Ally Is Under Attack — From the Very Institutions American Taxpayers Fund,” May 29, 2026:

American taxpayers fund the United Nations. American diplomats built it. This week, the Geneva-based group UN Watch released the most thorough accounting yet of who actually pays the salaries and shapes the verdicts of the U.N.’s human rights enforcers. The short answer: not the United States. The 104-page dossier, “From Watchdogs to Ideologues,” surveys 13 of the UN’s 59 Special Rapporteurs — the formally autonomous specialists whose findings carry near-judicial weight at the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, Western foreign ministries, and across the global press. It documents not occasional ideological tilt but the wholesale capture of a Western-built institution by the regimes it was meant to constrain…

Featured in Il Foglio, “Special Rapporteurs. Champion of Human Rights, Parrots of Dictatorships. A Report on the ‘Jewels of the UN,'” May 26, 2026:

Now the report “From Watchdogs to Ideologues,” published by UN Watch, the watchdog that keeps watch over the Glass Palace, dismantles the system. Irene Khan (Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression) repeatedly visited China before her appointment, complete with public praise for the “Belt and Road.” Selected by a panel led by China, Khan stands out for her almost total silence on repression in China, Cuba, Eritrea, Nicaragua, North Korea and other regimes. The most emblematic case described in the report is that of Alena Douhan, Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures (that is, sanctions). According to the document, Douhan attributed the economic and humanitarian crises of authoritarian countries to Western sanctions, neglecting internal factors such as corruption, political repression, poor economic management or armed conflicts. Her official missions mainly concerned countries such as China, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cuba and Iran, producing reports favorable to the governments visited.

Featured in The Australian, “This Book is Not Balanced,” May 2, 2026:

A UN Watch report in 2024 records Albanese as an anti-Israel activist and former UNRWA official. She dismissed Israel’s accusations that UNRWA employees had participated in the October 7 atrocities as “fallacious allegations” despite the UN admitting at least nine UNRWA employees had participated in the attacks. The report claimed that Albanese also endorsed comparing the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, to Adolf Hitler. Castigated by France and Germany for antisemitism when she denied the October 7 massacre was the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, she justified it as a “reaction to Israel’s oppression”.

Featured in The Epoch Times, “UN Human Rights Experts Funded by Dictatorships,” May 30, 2026:

In the document, UN Watch alleges that Alena Douhan, Special Rapporteur on the negative consequences of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, received approximately $1.3 million from China, Russia, and Qatar through her office. According to the organization’s reconstruction, nearly $980,000 came from the Chinese Communist Party, approximately $265,000 from the Kremlin, and another $50,000 from Doha. Also accused is Ben Saul, Special Rapporteur on terrorism and human rights, who allegedly received $150,000 from the Chinese regime, while George Katrougalos, Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, allegedly received $100,000 from the communist dictatorship in 2025.

Featured in Ceska Televize, “Authoritarian Regimes Bribe UN Special Rapporteurs, UN Watch Finds,” May 28, 2026:

A report by the non-profit organization UN Watch has revealed widespread interference by authoritarian states in the work of UN special rapporteurs. The investigation found that one in five of them accepted large sums of money and acted favorably towards donor countries. Some rapporteurs thus promote the agenda of countries such as Russia, China or Qatar. The UN has not yet commented.

Featured in Il Foglio, “Iran Is Working to Combat Violence Against Women. ‘Moral Collapse.’ Hillel Neuer Speaks Out,” May 16, 2026:

When Hillel Neuer enters the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, he is not warmly welcomed. Eyes follow him from the moment he climbs the stairs. “I am the most hated man at the UN,” he says of himself. Neuer is the founder of UN Watch, the Geneva-based organization that, for more than twenty years, has been doing something that no one else at the United Nations bothers to do: tell the truth. “It is easy for dictatorships to be elected thanks to the regional mechanism, so that countries like China, Iran and Pakistan obtain these seats and use their power to intimidate other countries,” Hillel Neuer tells Il Foglio.

Quoted in the National Post, ” Louise Arbour Is in the Club — You Are Not,” May 5, 2026:

Treasury Board President Vic Toews called her “a disgrace” in the House of Commons. B’nai Brith Canada called Toews’ remarks justified. UN Watch accused her of applying a double standard — using quiet diplomacy with Russia and China while publicly threatening Israeli leaders with prosecution.”

Featured in The Washington Stand, “20% of UN Special Rapporteurs Are Ideologically or Financially Tied to Tyrannies, Report Claims,” May 31, 2026:

Across its 104 pages, the report presents profiles of 13 Special Rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council — representing more than one-fifth of the 59 thematic or country-specific mandates tasked with reporting on human rights — and “reveals a pattern of ideological bias, financial conflicts of interest, and conduct that would end any professional career in any other institution,” a U.N. Watch source consulted for this article noted. “The U.N. human rights system was founded to protect victims of abuse,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based NGO. “Instead, it is being manipulated to attack democracies and protect some of the world’s worst human rights violators.”

Featured in JNS, “UN Special Rapporteur System Is Corrupt, Opaque and Broken, Watchdog Says,” May 28, 2026:

The report decries the advisers, whom the U.N. Human Rights Council selects and who are supposed to monitor and report neutrally on human rights issues globally. The rapporteurs purport to remain independent but call their autonomy into question by accepting government funding and maintaining professional and academic networks, according to the report. “You can’t call yourself independent when you’re being funded specifically by a government—putting aside the dictatorships—or any entity,” Neuer told JNS. “That has an influence on your work.” “Beyond the fact that they’re funded by dictators, they’re also being funded by organizations with far-left agendas, like George Soros’s Open Society Institute, giving millions of dollars to many of the rapporteurs,” Neuer added.

Quoted in Il Tempo, “Francesca Albanese Is No Longer Celebrating: US Sanctions Against Her Have Been Reinstated,” May 24, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, director of UN Watch, reported the news on X, noting that “following consideration of the U.S. government’s emergency request for an immediate administrative stay and a stay pending appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals has ordered a partial administrative stay of the preliminary injunction order issued by the district court on May 13, 2026, pending further action by the Court.”

Featured in Ynet News, “UN Watch Bombshell Report: UN Rights Envoys Accused of Bias, Foreign Funding and Ethical Breaches,” May 26, 2026:

The report adds that UN agencies frequently rely on unverified NGO reports and confidential sources, which it argues undermines accepted evidentiary standards. Despite these concerns, such reports continue to be cited by international courts, governments and major media outlets. In its conclusions, the report calls for broad structural reforms, including independent oversight mechanisms, transparency requirements and clear sanctions for misconduct. Proposed measures include a coalition of democratic states to regularly evaluate special rapporteurs, a ban on receiving external government funding, an independent external body for oversight and discipline, more stringent vetting of candidates outside UN political selection processes, and stricter evidentiary standards to reduce reliance on anonymous and unverified sources.

Featured in The Eastleigh Voice, “UN Watch Accuses 13 UN Rapporteurs of Bias and Conflicts of Interest,” May 26, 2026:

UN Watch also claims that reporting has not been applied consistently across countries, with some states facing repeated scrutiny while serious abuses elsewhere receive less attention or are not addressed in the same way. Similarly, the organisation alleges that some of the experts have publicly expressed views or taken positions that it says go beyond neutral reporting and reflect political opinions, rather than the impartial standards expected of their roles.

“The UN’s human rights system was founded to protect victims of abuse. Instead, it is being manipulated to attack democracies and shield some of the world’s worst human rights violators,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer.

Featured in Nicola Porro, “UN Experts on the Payroll of Russia, China, and Qatar. No Surprises. A Bloc of Corrupt Officials Protected by Total Impunity,”

“UN rapporteurs operate without constraints or ethical consequences – and there isn’t even a procedure for removing them,” said Hillel Neuer, director of UN Watch. “The result is a powerful bloc of compromised officials who enjoy not only diplomatic immunity but also complete impunity.” He added that “the UN human rights system was founded to protect victims of abuse. Instead, it is being manipulated to attack democracies and protect some of the world’s worst human rights violators.”

Featured in The Zimbabwean, “UN Watch Urges UN Security Council to Reject Michelle Bachelet Bid for Secretary-General,” May 27, 2026:

UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer accused Bachelet of turning the human rights office into an entity that protected major abusers. The organization released a list of 11 questions regarding her record, drawing from its September 2022 report, “Blind Eye to Dictatorships.” The report alleges that Bachelet’s office gave disproportionate attention to criticizing liberal democracies while remaining silent on severe abuses by authoritarian regimes. Specifically, UN Watch questioned why Bachelet failed to initiate any timely public statements regarding the poisoning and arrest of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, the detention of over 1,000,000 Uyghurs in China, and Iran’s forced hijab laws.

Featured in Diario Surnoticias, “UN Watch Urges the UN Security Council to Block Michelle Bachelet’s Candidacy for Secretary-General,” May 21, 2026:

The organization UN Watch on Thursday called on the UN Security Council to reject Michelle Bachelet ‘s candidacy to become the next Secretary – General of the United Nations , questioning her four-year tenure as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The NGO accused Bachelet of maintaining public silence on issues such as the mass detention of Uyghurs in China, the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny , and Iran’s mandatory hijab laws.“Under Bachelet ’s mandate , the office in charge of defending human rights became an office that protected the worst abusers in the world,” said Hillel Neuer , executive director of UN Watch.”The next person to head the UN must be willing to stand up to dictators, not protect them,” he added.

Featured in Ex Ante, “UN: Bachelet’s First Debate and What Lies Behind Her Dealings With Russia, France and the United Kingdom,” May 22, 2026:

The debate in London is taking place amid an offensive by UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO that monitors the performance of the UN and has been one of Bachelet’s most vocal critics for years. On May 19, the organization formally asked the Security Council to reject her candidacy.

Quoted in The Jewish Chronicle, “UN Adds Israel to ‘Blacklist’ of Countries That Commit Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones,” May 28, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, the director of watchdog UN Watch, told the JC: “The UN has once again descended into moral bankruptcy by placing Israel on this blacklist, alongside Hamas, the very terrorists who systematically raped, mutilated, and sexually tortured Israeli women, men, and children on October 7, and thereafter against the hostages in Gaza. Israel provided the UN with extensive documentation disproving the accusation. This decision strips the UN of any remaining credibility and reveals the extent to which it has been captured by those who hate Israel more than they hate rape as a weapon of war.” Neuer also called Israel’s inclusion a “blood libel,” adding: “The world should treat this blacklist with the contempt it deserves. Democracies must stop subsidising this institutionalised antisemitism. History will record this as another shameful chapter in the UN’s long war against the Jewish state.”

Quoted in JNS, “US Appeals Court Reinstates Sanctions Against Francesca Albanese,” May 25, 2026:

On May 23, U.N. Watch’s Hillel Neuer posted to X in a message directed at Albanese: “I tried to explain to you that the injunction was only temporary and was likely to be frozen and overturned by the appeals court, but as a non-lawyer who falsely claims to be a lawyer, you were either unwilling or unable to understand.” Neuer was referring to a controversy from last year when it was revealed that Albanese, who referred to herself as a lawyer, never passed the bar exam. She finally admitted in a May 27, 2025, interview with Vanity Fair that she never took the test “because I’m not a lawyer, and I never wanted to do it.” Although UN Watch has demanded since June 2025 that her designation as a lawyer be removed from her official U.N. biography page, the description still describes her as “an international lawyer, specialized in human rights and the Middle East.”

Featured in La Derecha Diario, “Scandal at UNRWA: A Student From a UN School Called to “Kill Jews” and Become a Martyr,” May 22, 2026: 

The footage was released by the organization UN Watch and shows a teenager identified as Kutaiba Hatab, a student at the UNRWA Jalazone School, delivering violent antisemitic messages on camera. In one of the most shocking clips, the young man states: “Those Jews, who are dogs, we will crush their heads.” In another part of the video, he adds: “I want to be a jihadist and kill Jews for Allah and become a martyr.” The recording sparked strong international outrage and once again put the role of UNRWA under scrutiny, an agency that has faced allegations for years of extremist indoctrination, antisemitism, and links to Palestinian terrorist organizations.

Quoted in JNS, “Scoop: In Webinar With Current and Former UN Staff, Anti-Israel Coalition Admits Secret Coordination With US-Sanctioned Group,” May 5, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, told JNS that “the mask has slipped” and that the “so-called ‘Hague Group’ is not a neutral coalition in the Netherlands defending international law but a coordinated political campaign guided behind closed doors by PLO-linked organizations in Ramallah, including Al Haq, a group under U.S. sanctions and tied to the terrorist PFLP.” “The Hague Group’s own officials admit these groups are present at every key meeting but deliberately hidden from view to preserve a veneer of legitimacy,” Neuer said. “This is not a good-faith diplomatic initiative. It’s a carefully constructed front.”

Quoted in the Times of Israel, “298 Pages of Evidence. The New York Times Ran the Other Story,” May 13, 2026:

The UN Watch has documented that Euro-Med disseminates claims that the IDF itself investigated and found no basis for, yet those claims were amplified by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as credible evidence of possible war crimes.

Featured in Bet Magazine Musaico, “Corruption and Conflicts of Interest Among 13 UN Special Rapporteurs: The Latest Report by UN Watch Reveals,” May 27, 2026:

UN Watch, a non-governmental organization committed to ensuring that the United Nations upholds the founding principles of human rights, equality, and justice, published on May 26 “ From watchdogs to ideologues, ” a 104-page investigation revealing how the UN’s top human rights experts have abandoned their role as independent observers and are promoting politicized agendas that undermine the credibility of the international human rights system.

Featured in Nuevo Mundo Israelita, “Explosive Report From UN Watch: UN Human Rights Envoys Receive External Funding,” May 27, 2026:

“Alena Douhan, who defines Western sanctions against dictatorships as illegal, received $1.3 million from China, Russia, and Qatar,” Neuer stated. “No one even monitors how this money is used. If a judge received $1.3 million from one of the parties, they would be immediately disqualified and removed from office. If a journalist openly supported a terrorist group on social media, they would be fired immediately.” In another case, Ben Saul , the UN Special Rapporteur on the fight against terrorism and human rights, who had previously urged foreign governments to halt arms exports to Israel, allegedly received $150,000 from China, a country widely accused of systematic human rights violations against minorities. The report notes that Saul has consistently avoided speaking out about the persecution of the Uyghur Muslim minority in China, including their detention in “re-education camps,” and has not questioned how Beijing presents its actions as “fighting terrorism.”

Quoted in Australian Jewish News, “UN Puts Israel on Sexual Violence Blacklist Alongside Hamas,” May 29, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, described the decision as “an obscene inversion of victim and perpetrator” and condemned it as “another modern blood libel”.

Quoted in Jewish News, “UN Places Israeli Entities on Sexual Violence Blacklist Alongside Hamas,” May 28, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, also criticised the decision. “The UN has once again descended into moral bankruptcy by placing Israel on this blacklist, alongside Hamas, the very terrorists who systematically raped, mutilated, and sexually tortured Israeli women, men, and children on 7 October, and thereafter against the hostages in Gaza,” Neuer said. “Israel provided the UN with extensive documentation disproving the accusation. The decision strips the UN of any remaining credibility and reveals the extent to which it has been captured by those who hate Israel more than they hate rape as a weapon of war.”

Featured in IsraJ, “UN: Special Rapporteurs Paid by China, Qatar and Russia,” May 27, 2026:

Beyond individual cases, the report denounces a fundamental structural flaw: within the UN system, there is no formal procedure for recalling special rapporteurs. “The result is a powerful bloc of officials who enjoy absolute immunity from the law and justice,” Neuer summarizes. The report also points to the widespread practice of relying on unverified reports from NGOs and anonymous sources, data which then feeds into the decisions of international courts, governments and media around the world, without their reliability ever being questioned.

Quoted in Israel Netz, “Israel Cuts Ties With Guterres,” May 29, 2026:

In response, UN Watch called it an “obscene reversal of perpetrator and victim roles.” Executive Director Hillel Neuer stated that it was a deliberate distortion of what Hamas did to the Israelis. “This is yet another modern blood libel,” he said.

Quoted in World Israel News, “US Restores Sanctions on UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese After Appeals Court Ruling,” May 24, 2026:

UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights organization that has repeatedly criticized Albanese, welcomed the appeals court’s order. The group had filed an amicus brief opposing the preliminary injunction sought by Albanese’s family. “Today’s ruling is an important victory for accountability and for the principle that no UN official is above the law,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. “The appeals court recognized that the sanctions should remain in force while the case is reviewed, after a lower court wrongly suspended measures aimed at protecting America and its allies from politically weaponized international prosecutions,” he said. UN Watch said its filing argued that Albanese’s activity went beyond speech and amounted to support for ICC prosecutorial efforts against Israeli and American officials.

Quoted in The Algemeiner, “Netanyahu, Sa’ar Rebuke Ben-Gvir Over Flotilla Video as Pro-Israel Voices Warn of Strategic, Diplomatic Damage,” May 20, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a pro-Israel NGO, addressed Netanyahu directly, writing: “Your Minister of Police Itamar Ben Gvir is a disgrace and a desecration. You need to fire him now.”

Quoted in Informazione Corretta, “US Court of Appeals Reinstates Sanctions Against Francesca Albanese,” May 27, 2026:

Among the protagonists of the campaign against Albanese is the organization UN Watch, which has been active in monitoring the United Nations for years . Its executive director, Hillel Neuer , greeted the decision in harsh tones: “We entered this case to demonstrate that actions have consequences. Today’s decision is a victory for the principle that no UN official is above the law. Francesca Albanese has engaged in clearly sanctionable conduct and now faces the weight of US sanctions. We will not rest until she is brought to justice.”

The post UN Watch in the News — May 2026 appeared first on UN Watch.

UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer joined i24 News with Nicole Zedeck to share UN Watch’s latest report exposing how UN “experts” accepted significant funding from China, Russia, and Qatar before attacking the U.S., Israel, and the West. Neuer also reacted to the UN placing Israel on the sexual violence blacklist alongside Hamas.

Nicole Zedeck: You have a new report and it states UN experts they’re accepting funding from China, Russia, Qatar pushing these countries’ interests. Can you just tell me what some of your findings are?

Hillel Neuer: Look, it’s numerous of the so-called UN human rights experts who get quoted every day by Reuters, the New York Times and other major media. We found that a number of them are taking money direct funding from China, Russia and Qatar. I’ll give a few examples.

Ben Saul, he’s a law professor at the University of Sydney. According to UN documents in 2024 he received $150,000 from China for his activities. And surprise surprise he’s the expert on counterterrorism. He’s never said a word to condemn China for putting a million Uyghur Muslims into camps in the name of counterterrorism. He hadn’t he hadn’t a word to say about that. Instead, he attacks Israel and America every single day.

There’s another UN expert her name is Alena Douhan. She received $1.3 million from China, Russia and Qatar. And guess what? She wrote reports praising shielding, apologizing for China, Russia and Qatar. She went on a Chinese-organized video saying everything is fine with the Uyghurs. She visited China to say everything is fine with the Uyghurs, blame the West. And she took $1.3 million. We have numerous examples of that. Extreme ideological bias in some cases financial corruption in other cases it’s an ideological extremism with no accountability.

We know the extreme case of Francesca Albanese who’s the de facto spokesperson for Hamas spreads Hamas lies. There’s no accountability. We made complaints. The chair of the UN Committee is himself a human rights expert who himself took $50,000 from China.

Nicole Zedeck: Well, if this is so deeply-rooted into the experts that are so embedded in the United Nations, what can be done if it’s so widespread?

Hillel Neuer: Well, we’ve complained to leading Western governments. In some cases they spoke out. In the case of Francesca Albanese is an exceptional case where France called on her to resign Germany condemned her for antisemitism the Canadian government condemned her for Holocaust inversion, and yet you have leading institutions like the New York Times, three Belgian universities that gave her a doctorate, media that give her a platform without mentioning the fact that she’s been found guilty of antisemitism by so many institutions.

So what we need is for the governments to step up. Our report, available on our website unwatch.org calls on leading Western governments to finally hold them accountable. When anti-American antisemitic rapporteurs are appointed we’re calling on the democracies to speak out not to go along, to get along not to legitimize and endorse them.

We need Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Australia not only the U.S. to speak out and call out these UN rapporteurs when they are ideologically captured or when they’re financially corrupt. And we need them to hold them to account. And if it means defunding them sanctioning them that’s what we need to see.

Nicole Zedeck: Hillel, what does it mean for Israel to be included in this list? Danny Danon is calling it “blood libel” being placed next to Hamas and other terror groups. But what is the true damage of being on this list?

Hillel Neuer: The damage is severe. The UN has once again descended into moral bankruptcy by placing Israel on a blacklist alongside Hamas. These are the very terrorists who systematically raped and sexually tortured Israeli women and others on October 7 and afterwards against the hostages in Gaza.

So look, this isn’t merely a mistake. This is an obscene inversion of victim and perpetrator. It’s a deliberate inversion of what Hamas did to Israelis. It is another modern blood libel the same kind that the UN rushed to fabricate. The lie that Israel bombed the Al-Ahli Hospital in October 2023, the lie about famine in Gaza, the lie that 14,000 children are going to die in 48 hours. This is the same kind of blood libel.

And look, Israel provided them with extensive documentation disproving this latest blood libel. Yet Secretary-General Guterres chose to reward terrorism. The decision strips the UN of any remaining credibility if they had any. And it reveals the extent to which the UN has been captured by those who hate Israel more than they care about rape being used as a weapon of war.

So look, the world needs to treat this blacklist with the contempt it deserves. Democracies need to stop subsidizing this institutionalized antisemitism. History will record this as another shameful chapter in the UN’s long war against the Jewish state.

The post Hillel Neuer Appears on i24 News to Share New UN Watch Report appeared first on UN Watch.

Featured on WION News, “UK PM Keir Starmer Faces Backlash Over UN Vote As Iran Joins Key Committee,” April 12, 2026:

Key Quote: 

UN Watch has demanded an explanation from democratic countries for why they’d allowed ‘serial abusers of human rights’ to be elected to key positions in the United Nations. The U.N. watchdog has said that the U.S. is the only state to object to some of the countries elected to the committee, calling Iran, Cuba, and Nicaragua ‘unfit.’ The watchdog warned that this could allow countries accused of rights abuses to block independent organizations and promote state-backed narratives.

Featured in Fox News, “Iran Secures UN Role With Backing From UK, France, Canada, Australia as US Stands Alone,” April 13, 2026:

The decision drew sharp criticism from UN Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog group. Hillel Neuer told Fox News Digital: “By their cynical actions at the UN, major Western states have betrayed their own human rights principles, severely undermining the rules-based international order that they claim to support.” “We note that the EU states clearly had another option. They did take action in recent years to stop Russia from getting elected to similar bodies, and so we deeply regret that they failed to do the same now to stop the election of serial violators such as Iran, China, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.” “We salute the United States for their moral clarity and leadership in objecting to the election of the Islamic Republic of Iran and other brutal regimes.” Neuer warned the composition of the NGO committee could allow authoritarian governments to influence which organizations are accredited, potentially sidelining independent human rights groups. “This means dictatorships will have a majority on the committee in order to deny United Nations accreditation to independent organizations that call out their human rights violations, and to accredit more fake front groups created by the regimes,” he said.

Featured in The Jerusalem Post, “UN Watch Demands Democracies Explain Election of Human Rights Abusers to UN Positions,” April 12, 2026:

UN Watch demanded an explanation on Saturday from democratic countries for why they’d allowed “serial abusers of human rights” to be elected to key positions in the United Nations…The democratic countries currently on ECOSOC are the United States, Canada, France, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, Australia, the UK, Finland, Switzerland, and Austria. UN Watch has said that the US is the only state to object to some of the countries elected to the committee, calling Iran, Cuba, and Nicaragua “unfit.” “Appointing China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia to oversee the work of human rights activists is like putting Al Capone in charge of fighting organized crime,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. “It’s truly indefensible and puts lives at risk.”

Quoted in the National Post, “Canada backing Iran at the UN betrays what Carney stood for at Davos,” April 16, 2026:

“To be clear, Canada joined the consensus in endorsing Iran and others, and it was not obliged to,” said Hillel Neuer. He added that putting “serial abusers” at the helm of human rights at the UN is “like putting Al Capone in charge of fighting organized crime.”

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, told Fox News Digital the vote reflects what he described as a broader erosion of institutional credibility at the United Nations. “This is part of a disturbing trend,” Neuer said. “Iran has been accumulating senior roles across the U.N. system, from human rights bodies to key committees. Each appointment chips away at the credibility of international institutions, reinforcing the perception that political deal-making outweighs basic standards of conduct.”

Quoted in the Toronto Sun, “Canada and the World Lose if Iran Wins,” April 15, 2026:

Prime Minister Mark Carney knows this, so when it comes to setting foreign policy, perhaps Canada could be a little less silent when the United Nations appoints Iran, as reported by UN Watch, to a committee shaping “policy on women’s rights, human rights, disarmament and terrorism prevention.”

Quoted in the National Post, “FIRST READING: Canada Says It Didn’t Endorse UN Iran Appointment (Except It Did),” April 21, 2026:

Canadian lawyer Hiller Neuer, who runs the organization UN Watch, noted in a critique that Canada has previously participated in efforts to keep Iran off UN committees, and has even exercised its right to “dissociate from consensus.”

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Quoted in CTV, “Critics Call Out Ottawa for Not Contesting Iran Joining UN Nuclear Weapons Conference,” April 29, 2026:

UN Watch, a group that primarily advocates for Israel, noted that Canada and most of its allies did not contest that move. The U.S. delegation was the only one to push back against Iran’s nomination on April 8…UN Watch says Canada did have an opportunity to call a vote, but did not speak out.

Quoted in El Español, “Iran’s Women, Trapped in a ‘Hostile Triangle’: The Future That Awaits the 1.6 Million Displaced Women After the Conflict,” April 16, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, director of UN Watch, called the decision “outrageous” and “indefensible ,” arguing that granting this power to regimes that are “serial violators” of these guarantees betrays the principles of Western democracies and puts the lives of activists fighting from within at risk.

Quoted in the Toronto Sun, “EDITORIAL: Canada Now a Paper Tiger on Human Rights,” April 16, 2026:

But Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said Canada and other countries failed to use other means available to them to express their opposition to the nomination, which will be formally decided in November.

Featured in Ynet News, “UN Advances Iran, Cuba, China to Key Human Rights Bodies,” April 12, 2026:

Theater of the absurd at the UN: The non-governmental organization UN Watch sharply criticized Western countries after it claimed they enabled the election of states with problematic human rights records to key positions in UN bodies dealing with the issue. The group’s executive director, Hillel Neuer, voiced strong criticism, saying earlier in the week that “appointing China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia to oversee human rights activists is like putting Al Capone in charge of fighting organized crime.”

Featured in Israel Hayom, “This Is No Joke: The UN Has Determined That Iran Will Monitor Its Women’s Rights Policy,” April 11, 2026:

“In their cynical actions at the UN, key Western states have betrayed their own human rights principles, severely undermining the rules-based international order they claim to uphold.” “We note that Western countries have acted in recent years to prevent Russia from being elected to similar ECOSOC bodies, and we deeply regret that they did not do so this time to block the election of serial violators such as Iran, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia and Sudan,” said Neuer.

Quoted in i24 France, “UN: Iran Appointed to a Body Linked to Women’s Rights, Criticism From NGOs,” April 11, 2026:

Iran’s appointment to a United Nations body linked to women’s rights and human rights policies has sparked critical reactions, notably from the NGO UN Watch. The organization called on democratic states to explain their position following this appointment, which took place within the framework of the Programme and Coordination Committee (PCC), attached to the UN Economic and Social Council.

Quoted in Periodista Digital, “Spain Supports Iran in Key UN Committee on Women and Human Rights,” April 13, 2026:

The NGO UN Watch, dedicated to monitoring UN activities, issued a statement this Friday denouncing that democracies like Spain elect “repeat human rights violators” to high-ranking positions. Hillel Neuer, its director, has demanded explanations from the governments involved.

Quoted in Breitbart, “U.N. Gives Iran Seat on Nuclear Non-Proliferation Panel,” April 28, 2026:

U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that Iran’s vice-presidency at the NPT conference was “part of a disturbing trend,” which also included Iran’s absurd nomination on April 13 to a U.N. body concerned with human rights, women’s rights, and counterterrorism. “Iran has been accumulating senior roles across the U.N. system, from human rights bodies to key committees. Each appointment chips away at the credibility of international institutions, reinforcing the perception that political deal-making outweighs basic standards of conduct,” Neuer warned.

Quoted in Il Giornale, “Trouble at the Albanese Household. Her Husband Has Been Removed, and She’s Losing Her Mind,” April 17, 2026: 

The request to take action against Calì originated with a letter sent by the NGO to the World Bank on August 12 (copying US Secretary of State Marco Rubio). In the letter, as Hillel Neuer, executive director of United Nations Watch, recounts, “we asked the World Bank to hold Massimiliano Calì accountable for extremist political conduct that flagrantly violates its duty to act responsibly in public statements and to avoid compromising the World Bank’s neutrality and causing reputational risk.”

Quoted in Libero Quotidiano, “Francesca Albanese, the World Bank Suspends Her Husband,” April 17, 2026:

At the eleventh point of his very long thread on X, Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, takes the win, but counters: “We applaud the World Bank for finally taking action against Calì. But it’s not enough to remove him from this top post. After blatantly violating the World Bank’s code of conduct for over a decade, and promoting jihadist terrorism, he should be completely removed and fired.” Calì—given name: Massimiliano—is the husband of Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the “situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.”

Quoted in Il Tempo, “Francesca Albanese, the World Bank Suspends Her Husband and She Loses Her Temper: ‘Vile,'” April 18, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, reiterated: “We have asked the World Bank to hold Massimiliano Calì accountable for political conduct that violates his duty to act responsibly in public statements,” in order to “avoid compromising the World Bank’s neutrality and causing reputational risks.” Albanese’s husband, however, did not sit idly by and sued in US federal court, complaining that “UN Watch pressured the World Bank to terminate my employment,” so much so that “on October 22, Bank management informed me that my position as Country Economist for Syria was suspended and that I would be required to leave the department by July 2026,” or “three years before my original termination date of June 2029.”

Quoted in the Epoch Times, “China, Cuba and Iran Join Key UN Human Rights Bodies,” April 11, 2026:

The appointment was criticized by UN Watch, the independent Geneva-based non-governmental organization that monitors the United Nations. On April 10, the NGO asked France, the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, and Australia to explain “why they participated in the election of repeat human rights abusers to key positions within UN bodies that oversee human rights.”

Featured in the Times of Israel, “Reporter Who Profiled UN’s Albanese Deletes Social Media After ‘Jewish Lobby’ Posts Surface,” April 1, 2026:

Politico Europe published a profile about Albanese and the sanctions yesterday, calling the 2014 Jewish lobby comment “a term that recalled racist theories about global Jewish conspiracies.” The comment was first exposed by The Times of Israel. UN Watch, a nonprofit watchdog group, finds X comments from the same year by the reporter who wrote the article. The reporter, Karl Mathiesen, wrote, “Can someone explain the US reluctance to stand up to Israel? Is it the Jewish lobby? How powerful can it be?” Another user responded with a dollar sign, to which Mathiesen said, “Okay, gotcha. But where exactly does that transaction occur? Banks? Stock markets?”

Featured in JNS, “Waltz Criticizes ‘Fawning Celebrity Profile’ of US-Sanctioned Albanese,” April 6, 2026:

Separately, the Politico Europe article drew scrutiny after UN Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog group, highlighted past social media posts by its author, Karl Mathiesen, including a 2014 tweet in which Mathiesen asked, “Can someone explain the U.S. reluctance to stand up to Israel? Is it the Jewish lobby? How powerful can it be?” Mathiesen later deleted his X account.

Quoted in The Jewish Chronicle, “Observers Baffled as UK Nominates Iran for UN Human Rights Committee,” April 13, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, a non-governmental organisation that monitors the UN, said: “By their cynical actions at the UN, major Western states have betrayed their own human rights principles, severely undermining the ruled-based international order that they claim to support.”

Quoted in Il Giornale, “Francesca Albanese and Her Husband Are Posing as Victims of a System: ‘We Suffer From Stomach Ulcers and Chronic Headaches,'” April 8, 2026: 

Trouble for Francesca Albanese ‘s husband? So it would seem, according to the well-known Canadian lawyer and head of the NGO “UN Watch,” Hillel Neuer. According to him, Albanese’s husband, Massimiliano Calì ,”filed a complaint in the US court: ‘On August 12, UN Watch pressured the World Bank to terminate my employment. On October 22, World Bank management informed me that my position as an economist for Syria was suspended and that I would be forced to leave my position.'”

Mentioned in The Jerusalem Post, “UNRWA’s West Bank Schools Drop to Four-Day Weeks over Funding Issues, UN Agency Confirms to ‘Post,’” April 26, 2026:

The decline in donations coincides with the ongoing public criticism by Israel and organizations like UN Watch on its failures to weed out Hamas from its personnel and facilities. Throughout the war in Gaza, the IDF uncovered terror hubs in UNRWA schools and headquarters, and members of UNRWA’s staff were found to be members of Hamas and/or involved in the October 7 massacre.

Mentioned in JNS, “Husband of Francesca Albanese Constrained at World Bank Due to Sanctions on Wife,” April 10, 2026:

According to court filings, Cali wrote that the World Bank informed him in October that his position as senior country economist for Syria was suspended some three months from his starting date, and that he would have to leave the World Bank’s Middle East/North Africa division by this July. He attributed the decision in part to outside pressure, including advocacy by the watchdog group U.N. Watch.

Quoted in Il Giornale D’Italia, “Iran Elected Vice-Chair of the UN Commission on Social Development and Women’s Rights. Abbas Tajik: ‘We Promote Equality,'” April 16, 2026:

Electing Iran to head a commission dedicated to democracy, women’s rights, and nonviolence is a ” mockery ,” denounced Hillel Neuer ,executive director of UN Watch. “This is a regime that brutalizes women because they don’t cover their hair and that has just massacred tens of thousands of civilians in two days,” Neuer said. He added that governments had the option to block the nomination but chose not to act. ” EU states know how to prevent abusive regimes from obtaining these seats—they did so in the recent past with Russia—but this time, with Iran, they have chosen silence and complicity,” he added.

Quoted in All Israel News, “UN Faces Backlash for Nominating Iran, China to Key Human Rights Roles,” April 12, 2026:

The nominations, which are typically approved automatically by the UN General Assembly, drew sharp criticism from UN Watch, a Geneva-based monitoring group, which warned they could undermine protections for civil society worldwide. The slate was backed by several democracies, including Canada, France, the United Kingdom and Australia. “Appointing China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia to oversee the work of human rights activists is like putting Al Capone in charge of fighting organized crime,” stated Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. “It’s truly indefensible and puts lives at risk.”

Quoted in Iton Gadol, “The World Turned Upside Down: Iran Is Selected for a Key UN Committee That Defines Policies on Human Rights, Disarmament, and Terrorism,” April 11, 2026: 

One of the most resounding criticisms came from UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental organization that closely monitors states’ performance within the multilateral system. They described the decision as a “disgrace,” arguing that Iran’s human rights record conflicts with the committee’s mandate.

Quoted in Caliber, “Iran elected to UN Committee for Programme, Coordination,” April 11, 2026:

However, the United States and Israel strongly opposed Iran’s election, citing concerns over its human rights record and its alleged support for terrorism. In a similar vein, UN Watch, a watchdog organisation monitoring the UN’s effectiveness, condemned the appointment, calling it a “disgrace.”

The post UN Watch in the News — April 2026 appeared first on UN Watch.