UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer joined Newsmax’s Emma Rechenberg and Jon Glasgow to discuss Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s UN General Assembly address, the UN’s longstanding bias against Israel, and UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher’s troubling embrace of Iran’s regime.

Emma Reckenberg, Newsmax: Let’s welcome Hillel Neuer, Executive Director at UN Watch. Hillel, what did you make of Netanyahu’s speech at the UN General Assembly?

Hillel Neuer: I think it was a strong statement by Israel’s Prime Minister. Israel is being attacked militarily on seven different fronts in the past three years. You could say the eighth front is the United Nations, the international stage where Israel’s very existence is challenged repeatedly by the world’s worst dictatorships. Israel’s leader made a powerful statement, a powerful speech. He called out the dictators like Turkey, Iran, and Qatar for their funding of terrorism and their hypocrisy. He called out the UN, and he made a strong case for Israel’s right to defend itself.

So I think it was regarded by neutral observers worldwide as a strong case, and I think Israelis at home as well. And, of course, keep in mind that Israel’s Prime Minister has an election in one month, and obviously he was looking both to the global audience but also to the domestic audience. I think on both, I think it was successful for him.

Jon Glasgow, Newsmax: And you’ve been covering the UN for years here. Why do you think that the institution has become so anti-Israel?

Hillel Neuer: Well, this isn’t new. It began at least 50 years ago. Let’s recall that in 1975, the then-Soviet Union, which was the leader of the anti-democratic bloc, together with Arab states, pushed a resolution through declaring Zionism to be a form of racism. This means the very existence of the State of Israel, which was first proposed and recognized by the League of Nations in 1922, when they recognized the ancestral historical rights of the Jewish people to their homeland, and then in 1948, when Israel was admitted to the United Nations, was challenged in 1975 by the General Assembly.

Since then, going back now 50 years, every year at the UN, there’s only one resolution on Iran, one on North Korea, zero on most of the world, and at least 15 targeting Israel. No mention of Hamas, no mention of the jihad, no mention of Abbas and the torture that he commits, or the fact that Abbas, who calls himself president of Palestine, is in the 22nd year of his four-year term.

So why is it happening? Briefly, you have countries that want to go along to get along. They are persuaded by vote trading. Fifty-six Islamic nations trade their votes, vast amounts of oil in the Arab world, and, I would say, fear of terrorism. These can all combine — threats to pull investment, Qatar’s billions of dollars of sovereign wealth funds. All of these are realpolitik.

And I would just mention one other factor, which is that Israel continues to be singled out as the Jew among the nations. There’s no question that some Europeans, for example, when they used to single out the Jews for poisoning the wells, today the modern form is singling out the world’s only Jewish country as responsible for all the world’s ills.

Emma Reckenberg, Newsmax: You point out so many challenges Israel continues to face, and yet the country is defiant in its determination to stand up for its Jewish residents, but also Christian residents, Arab residents as well. Those who are practicing Islam are all welcome in Israel to do so. But you saw those delegations get up and leave. I mean, are they even going to offer a chance to listen to some of these proposals that we’ve heard from Bibi Netanyahu?

Hillel Neuer: Look, that’s an annual ritual. There’s the ritual of scapegoating Israel in 15 different resolutions, and the United Nations so-called Human Rights Council, which just met yesterday on their special agenda item targeting Israel. No other country in the world has that agenda item.

There’s a ritual scapegoating, and the walkout is performative. You know, many of the delegates were, you know, 10 or 15 members of the same tiny country. The Palestinians sent a memo saying, “Bring the largest possible entourage you can gather, so that we’ll have a walkout.”

Look, the reality is that Israel’s Prime Minister just went to Abu Dhabi to meet with the head of the United Arab Emirates. Israel has very strong relations with Bahrain, Morocco, and other Arab and Muslim nations that actually care about peace. Israel has a very strong relationship with Saudi Arabia. It’s not formal yet. We wish that would be formalized for the sake of peace.

And as you said, Christians and Muslims live with equal rights in Israel. If you walk into any shopping mall in Israel, you will see Arabs wearing hijabs, not just working there, but managing the stores there as customers. Anywhere you go in Israel, you will hear the call of the muezzin to call to prayer.

So the accusations made against Israel are completely false. It’s a Jewish country, but very much a multicultural society. There’s going to be elections next month. Arabs will vote, Muslims will vote, Christians will vote. Not only will they vote, they’ll be elected to positions of power. Nowhere else in the Middle East—not Egypt, not Syria, not Lebanon—can you actually have free and fair elections for Arabs, Muslims, or Christians. Only in Israel. That’s the truth. That’s the reality.

Jon Glasgow, Newsmax: Well said. Let me show you this photo here. That’s become quite controversial. It shows Tom Fletcher, who serves as the head of the UN’s relief agency, shaking hands with the Iranian foreign minister. Critics say that Fletcher looks like he’s bowing to the Iranian leader. You say that when this was posted, the photo, Fletcher blocked you after this was posted. What were your takeaways from the photo and maybe the backlash that followed?

Hillel Neuer: Look, that photo is published throughout Iranian state media. They are cheering this. This is a propaganda victory. I’ve seen no explanation other than that he made some kind of a deferential bow. You see the smile on the part of the regime’s so-called foreign minister. He has blood on his hands. They massacred tens of thousands of Iranians for protesting for freedom. The regime is celebrating this photo.

Tom Fletcher is someone — let’s keep in mind, when he was British ambassador to Lebanon, he welcomed the role of Hezbollah. He, for the past year or two, as UN relief chief, humanitarian coordinator, has routinely echoed Iranian regime talking points, accusing America and Israel of harming the economy worldwide. He hasn’t said a word about the Iranian regime, how they destroyed Lebanon, destroyed Iraq, destroyed Yemen, destroyed Gaza. He gives them a free pass.

So there are serious questions. We’ve called on the United Nations to remove Mr. Fletcher from his position, replace him with someone who can actually earn the respect of the world, because humanitarian needs are serious. This is someone who defers to dictators. He shouldn’t be in that position.

The post Hillel Neuer on Newsmax: “The U.N. Scapegoats Israel” appeared first on UN Watch.

Featured in CBS News, “Elie Wiesel’s son on Trump’s U.N. speech,” September 22, 2026:

“The U.N. is fundamentally broken. UN Watch published a report showing 490 employees of UNRWA linked directly to terror. Later, UNRWA ended up firing some 70 of them.”
— Human rights activist @ElishaWiesel, son of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, on @CBSNews https://t.co/LYNJRZ8epI

— UN Watch (@UNWatch) September 23, 2026

Appeared in The Fox News Rundown, “Evening Edition: President Trump Won’t Rule Out More Strikes on Iran,” September 28, 2026:

Key quote:

The Human Rights Council in Geneva, sadly, is completely subverted. The chair of the UN human rights experts is a gentleman named George Katrougalos. The UN disclosure form says that China gave his mandate $100,000. What decent, properly functioning, self-respecting human rights expert would take $100,000 from the Chinese Communist regime? He didn’t mention a word about a million Uyghurs put in camps. Didn’t mention a word about 78 year old newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai being thrown in the dungeon in Hong Kong. Didn’t mention a word about Taiwan being threatened by China. Didn’t mention a word about 6000 Tibetan temples being destroyed by China.”

Appeared in HonestReporting, “Apartheid, Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity: Hillel Neuer on Who Wrote the Charges Against Israel,” September 16, 2026:

Key quote:

This was supposed to be the World Conference Against Racism, held in the new post-apartheid South Africa at the beginning of the 21st century, 2001. And yet, what happened really was a travesty. A conference that was supposed to be against racism became a conference that promoted racism. At the governmental conference, Israel was the only country singled out as an alleged perpetrator of racism by listing the Palestinians as the only group under the rubric of victims of racism. The NGO forum, which happened in parallel, accused Israel of words that are familiar today but were not then, which was genocide, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. So, much of the venom and the hate that we’re seeing today can be attributed back to what we saw at an international so-called anti-racism, so-called human rights conference 25 years ago.

Appeared in Newsmax, “In the Middle East, the UN is completely irrelevant,” September 23, 2026:

Key quote:

The United Nations is facing a very serious test. There’s a race now to succeed the Secretary-General, but I’d say that there’s a race to be relevant. Let’s keep in mind that we have crises around the world. In Sudan, there are some 14 million people displaced. Hundreds of thousands have been killed, wounded. The UN is doing nothing to solve that problem. The few people, on the initial straw polls, who’ve been leading are not substantial personalities who are well known. And keep in mind, to win the spot, you have to be approved not only by the U.S. but by Russia and China. So to imagine that you’ll have someone with a spine is a very hard expectation, given the regimes they have to appease.”

Appeared in ILTV, “Guterres’ Double Standard on Gaza Exposed,” September 23, 2026:

Key quote:

He says that what’s happening in Gaza is the worst situation he’s ever seen, the scale unprecedented from anything he’s witnessed. Well, in the time that he’s been Secretary-General, perhaps he didn’t notice, but hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Sudan, in Syria, in Ukraine, in Yemen, in Ethiopia, and the list goes on. So, just factually, by any measure, if you look at Hamas’s maximalist figures, the other situations that I mentioned are far greater. The other piece which is significant is that Hamas invaded Israel. Hamas launched a massacre on October 7, killing 1,200 people in one day—the equivalent of 12 9/11 attacks proportionally, if you compare Israel’s population to America.

Appeared in Boundless Insights, “The United Nations – with Hillel Neuer,” September 16, 2026:

Key quote:

You also get European countries [voting against Israel]. So you ask, why is this happening? Let’s look at the rational reasons. Number one: vote trading. So if you’re China, which actually has a million Uyghurs locked up in camps, you don’t want the Muslim countries criticizing you, so you throw them a bone. Israel has one vote; the Islamic group, 56. Second is oil. Still, large amounts of the world’s oil reserves are held by countries like the Arab world; Qatar with gas. Very significant third, I would say, is investment. There are countries that want billions of dollars of Qatari investments, and I’ve seen it in secret cables that were leaked online through WikiLeaks, where, I think, it was Brazil, for example, was afraid if they vote the wrong way, they might lose a major investment of some kind.

Quoted in Fox News, “UN agency accused of Hamas ties sees another European nation cut funding,” September 7, 2026:

Finland’s principled decision to defund terror-infested UNRWA will not deprive Palestinians of aid, as it will be redirected through genuine humanitarian agencies such as the World Food Programme that are not systemically infiltrated by Hamas.

Op-ed featured in The Jerusalem Post, “Why Guterres won’t rein in the ‘out of control’ UN rapporteurs on his watch,” September 11, 2026:

In November 2006, then-UN secretary-general Kofi Annan called the special rapporteurs “the crown jewel of the UN human rights system.” Two decades later, a secretary-general has finally said what UN Watch has documented for years. In an interview with the Financial Times, António Guterres admitted that “many” of these so-called independent experts are “totally out of control.”

UN rapporteurs wield the UN’s authority without its accountability, leaving ideology and bias to fill the void.

Featured in News 12, “The UN paid tribute to him as an educator – Hamas paid tribute to him as a martyr,” August 31, 2026:

UN Watch, which monitors the activities of UN institutions, identified the figure: the man Hamas is eulogizing as a martyr is the same UNRWA employee that the UN chose to memorialize.

Quoted in The Australian, “Australia risks dirty deals in bid for UN seat,” September 21, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a global non-government agency which monitors the UN, has warned that the diplomatic horse-trading required to win the seat makes any campaign ethically “problematic” for a democracy like Australia. “The amount of capital that you have to invest in it, and the deals that you have to make with many unsavoury regimes in order to win, makes (a campaign) problematic,” he told The Australian.  “You have to win the support of so many dictatorships,” Mr Neuer said. “When Australia campaigns, you will see (diplomats) flying to some of the most non-democratic countries. But do we get a disclosure about what promises are made (to win their vote)? (Australia) will say to these countries, ‘don’t worry, we’re not going to give you a hard time, we’re going to give you a free pass.’ I don’t think that is worth it.”

Featured in Le Point, “Netanyahu at the UN… and on the campaign trail,” September 24, 2026:

It may seem paradoxical, but Netanyahu is fond of the UN. Even though his country is the state most frequently condemned by the organisation – to an alarming extent, according to figures from the NGO UN Watch – he enjoys visiting it.

Featured in The Jerusalem Post, “UN chief Guterres slammed for ignoring Iranian regime executions in talk with President Pezeshkian,” September 2, 2026:

UN Watch director Hillel Neuer criticized Guterres over the meeting and wrote on X that,
according to the official readout, “the regime’s slaughter of tens of thousands of civilian protesters was not discussed.”

Featured in Ynet, “US envoy: UN officials knew Francesca Albanese and other rapporteurs were ‘out of control’,” September 2, 2026:

UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer noted that Albanese herself has said she has “never heard from” Guterres, arguing that she was therefore in no position to interpret his private views.

Quoted in The Jerusalem Post, “UNRWA overstated progress on institutional changes, preserved terrorism issues, watchdog says” September 16, 2026:

“UNRWA has graded its own homework and awarded itself high marks,” UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer said. “But issuing a policy is not the same as enforcing it. Drafting a plan is not the same as implementing it, and closing a recommendation does not mean that the underlying problem has been solved.”

Quoted in WELT, “UN rapporteur sparks outrage with comments about concentration camps,” September 28, 2026:

The NGO UN Watch publicised Albanese’s comments and sharply criticised them: “She cannot name anti-Semitism without replacing the Jews.”

Featured in JNS, “UN Watch report: UNRWA overstated reform implementation,” September 15, 2026:

According to a new investigation by the NGO UN Watch, the results of which were released on Monday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) overstated its completion of reforms promised to donor governments following revelations that employees participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

Featured in The Jerusalem Post, “Daughter of former Gaza hostage confronts UN over UNRWA funding despite Hamas ties,” September 16, 2026:

Neta Heiman Mina’s statement came on the heels of a scathing report published by UN Watch on Monday, which claimed that UNRWA has substantially overstated its progress on institutional changes, substituting administrative paperwork for actual reform while underlying issues involving terrorism and incitement remain unaddressed.

Featured in Ynet, “‘A UNRWA teacher held my mother in the attic’: Testimony at the UN – and the ‘reform’ at the agency,” September 16, 2026:

Haiman delivered a 90-second statement during a panel discussion on human rights education for children and youth, held to mark the anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training. Her remarks were delivered jointly by UN Watch and Ingénieurs du Monde. “For 48 days, a UNRWA teacher kept my mother trapped in his attic – in terrible conditions, with very little food,” she said. “I ask the UN: How could you entrust the education of the next generation in Gaza to someone who was involved in holding an elderly woman hostage?”

Quoted in National Post, “Marty York: Carney has only doubled down on Trudeau’s Israel failures,” September 22, 2026:

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said in a release earlier this month that UNRWA boasts of sweeping progress “on paper” but, “on the ground, its employees continue to be exposed as members and supporters of terrorist organizations, hateful educational content persists, and Hamas-dominated unions continue to obstruct neutrality and discipline.”

Quoted in Il Riformista, “‘The UN is useless like this. Guterres could become the worst ever.’ The United Nations as seen by Hillel Neuer,” September 26, 2026:

Guterres may be the worst Secretary-General in the history of the UN. He leaves behind an institution that applies moral outrage selectively, provides too much cover for authoritarian regimes, and tolerates anti-Israel bias. He has only now admitted that many of the UN’s special rapporteurs are ‘totally out of control.’ But he has had nearly a decade to address this problem.

Quoted in De Standaard, “UN rapporteur Albanese apologises for comments on anti-Semitism and the Nazi concentration camps,” September 29, 2026:

UN Watch also condemned Albanese’s remarks. “She cannot speak of anti-Semitism without replacing the Jews themselves.”

Featured in National Post, “Ottawa is sending another $100 million to Palestinians without knowing where the money will be spent,” September 30, 2026:

In 2024, an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon killed Fathi al-Sharif, whom Hamas would confirm as one of its senior operatives in the country. Al-Sharif had not only been principal of a UNRWA school right up until 2023, but he had been head of Lebanon’s UNRWA teachers union. A scan of al-Sharif’s social media by the group UN Watch also found photos of him attending Hamas events and inviting known Hamas leaders to his school.

Featured in De Morgen, “‘Moral compass for Palestine’ Francesca Albanese no longer wants to send weapons to Ukraine and thereby garners a storm of criticism,” September 24, 2026:

In recent years, Albanese has said little or nothing about the war in Ukraine, except to criticise the West for having moved swiftly to impose sanctions on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, yet dragging its feet on sanctions against Israel. This time, however, she was persuaded to offer further explanation, and her controversial remarks immediately went viral on social media. The storm has been fuelled, amongst others, by her main opponent, Hillel Neuer of the NGO UN Watch.

Featured in 21News, “Jews were called Muslims”: Francesca Albanese’s astonishing claims about antisemitism,” September 25, 2026:

Francesca Albanese claims that antisemitism was not solely about hatred of Jews and cites the deportees labeled “Muslims” in Nazi camps. These claims have been strongly denounced by UN Watch and do not stand up to historical scrutiny. Its executive director, Hillel Neuer, accuses Albanese of not explaining anti-Semitism but of “completely rewriting its meaning and distorting the history of the Holocaust.” UN Watch is now calling on member states of the Human Rights Council, including France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, to publicly condemn these statements.

Featured in National Post, “Barbara Kay: Shame on the UN for commemorating 25 years of toxic antizionism,” September 20, 2026:

Last month, UN Watch and NGO Monitor held an informative and evocative webinar titled “25 Years After Durban: The lasting impact of the UN World Conference Against Racism.” The panel of experts had all been witnesses to the debacle, and their shock at the experience has kept their recollections vivid and their combative fervour animated. UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer also appeared on the webinar. He linked Durban to the infamous UN General Assembly’s 1975 “Zionism is racism” resolution, which was finally repealed in 1991. But its spirit lived on as a gathering ideological storm, whose inchoate fury was unleashed at Durban. Israel and the U.S. are boycotting the Sept. 28 commemoration event, and UN Watch has launched a petition calling on other countries to condemn and boycott it as well.”

Featured in Jamestown, “‘We’re Coming For You’: PRC Influence in UN Rights Bodies,” September 30, 2026:

One case in particular demonstrates how the PRC uses these donations as a tool to advance its interests. The PRC extended nearly $1 million between 2020–2026 to Alena Douhan, the Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights. Douhan, who departed her post this year, is a professor from Belarus who criticized the international community’s sanctions targeting the PRC for its abuses against the Uyghur population (UN Watch, May 26, p.75).

Featured in The Rio Times, “Chile’s Michelle Bachelet Quits the Race for UN Secretary-General,” September 20, 2026:

Mexico formally presented Bachelet’s candidacy, according to a UN disclosure document dated 4 February 2026. Her own country’s backing had not survived Chile’s change of government. Chile’s new government withdrew its support on 24 March 2026, after President José Antonio Kast took office. Bachelet belongs to the Socialist Party, the political opposite of Kast’s conservative camp. No reaction from the governments of Chile, Mexico or Brazil appeared in the coverage reviewed on Sunday. The Geneva-based group UN Watch, a long-time critic, welcomed her defeat.

Featured in La Voce del Patriota, “Antisemitism: Albanese adds another disgraceful entry to her CV,” September 28, 2026:

The so-called lawyer Albanese continues to add shameful statements to her track record. The latest came during an interview with Clate Vision, reported by UN Watch, in which she claimed: ‘The Nazis called Jews Muslims’ – words that are unseemly and an affront to history. Then, as always, following these statements, she apologises, but by now she has dropped the mask: hers is an obsession.” This was stated by Fratelli d’Italia Senator Ester Mieli, the party’s national head of the Department for Equal Opportunities and Policies against All Forms of Discrimination.

Featured in National Post, “Opinion: A clarion call for Canadians to stand against Jew hatred,” September 20, 2026:

Many years ago, human rights activist Natan Sharansky identified the three Ds of antisemitism — double standards, delegitimization and demonization — that help us understand Jew hatred pertaining to Israel. It is a double standard when Israel’s conduct is singled out and not similarly condemned when practised by other democratic countries. Delegitimization is when Israel’s very existence is portrayed as illegitimate or Jews are denied the right to self-determination. Demonization is when Israel or Jews are portrayed using extreme, dehumanizing or conspiratorial language or imagery. An example of how the three Ds manifest themselves can be seen at the United Nations. According to data from UN Watch, between 2015 and 2024, the UN General Assembly passed 173 resolutions against Israel, compared with 80 concerning all other countries combined.

Featured in Post Timees News, “A senior UN official has called for an end to arms supplies to Ukraine,” September 24, 2026:

Earlier this week, UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental organisation that monitors the activities of the UN, sent a letter to the organisation’s Secretary-General, António Guterres, asking him to condemn the senior official’s comments. According to UN Watch, Albanese exploited his position of authority to express personal views on matters outside his mandate, thereby breaching the UN Human Rights Council’s Code of Conduct. The Code emphasises the need to remain within the bounds of one’s mandate and to refrain from expressing personal political opinions.

Featured in Ynet, “Chile’s Michelle Bachelet Quits the Race for UN Secretary-General,” September 28, 2026:

The photograph, which made headlines in the Iranian media, has angered Jewish and Israeli figures. Hillel Neuer, head of UN Watch, commented: “It’s a disgrace.” Former British diplomat Tom Fletcher, now head of the UN aid agency, is bowing to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, whose regime has just massacred tens of thousands of protesters in January. Fletcher has frequently echoed the Iranian regime’s talking points against the US and Israel.”

Featured in The Australian, “Leadership must expunge uni student drive for blood,” September 25, 2026:

The horse-trading to secure a Security Council seat makes campaigning ethically “problematic” for a democracy such as Australia, Cameron Stewart wrote this week, quoting Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a global non-government agency that monitors the UN. The world body’s attitude towards Israel, a democracy, was clear in the contrived walkout by delegates, planned in advance, when Jewish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the General Assembly on Friday AEST, emphasising that claims of Gaza genocide was “the biggest lie of the century.”

Quoted in Ynet, “UN aid chief Tom Fletcher criticized over gesture to Iran’s foreign minister in New York,” September 28, 2026:

The image shows senior U.N. official Tom Fletcher appearing to bow before Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. The photo, which drew headlines in Iranian media, angered Israeli and Jewish figures. Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, wrote: “Shame. Former British diplomat Tom Fletcher, now head of the UN’s relief agency, bows to Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi whose regime just massacred tens of thousands of protesters in January. Fletcher often echoed Iranian regime talking points against the US and Israel.”

Featured in El Nacional, “Lula’s candidate at the UN suffers an abrupt and premature setback,” September 23, 2026:

According to UN Watch, Bachelet did not go far enough in condemning the poisonings and the detention of political prisoners by Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia, nor the persecution of women who refused to cover their heads in Iran.

Cited in Toronto Sun, “While the world burns, the UN looks away,” September 20, 2026:

Last month, the dictatorship of Eritrea was appointed chair of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s 2026 Social Forum.

Quoted in Ynet, “Anti-Israel UN envoy apologises: ‘I misinterpreted the term “Muselmann,”’” September 28, 2026:

UN Watch, an organization that monitors UN activities and has criticized Albanese, responded to her comments on X: “Even in Nazi death camps: She cannot name Jew-hatred without replacing the Jews.”

Featured in South African Jewish Report, “HPCSA backs down on Mofokeng misconduct finding,” September 15, 2026:

“Special rapporteurs don’t have blanket immunity. They have functional immunity, which covers their words spoken or actions taken specifically in carrying out their mandate, and those limits are very clear in the UN Convention on Privileges and Immunities.” [UN Watch Legal Adviser Dina] Rovner described allowing Mofokeng to avoid a disciplinary process on immunity grounds as “a complete abuse of her position which undermines the immunity convention”.

Featured in UA. NEWS, “In Geneva, former hostage’s daughter questions UNRWA funding,” September 16, 2026:

In Geneva, Switzerland, Neta Heiman Mina, the daughter of former hostage Ditsa Geyman, spoke at the 63rd session of the UN Human Rights Council and questioned the continued funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Geyman Mina spoke on behalf of the Geneva-based organization UN Watch and the international non-governmental organization Ingénieurs du Monde.

Featured in Linfodrome, “Al-Burhan is accused of enabling the production of chemical weapons inside Sudan,” September 8, 2026:

This may be what led international human rights lawyer and UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer to speak of a major catastrophe linked to the fact that the Sudanese army had transformed “chlorinated gas supplied by UNICEF, CARE and the Red Cross for water treatment into lethal chemical weapons”, stressing that “the United Nations and international humanitarian organizations are facing pressing questions that demand answers”.

Featured in Brasil em Folhas, “Finland cuts funding to UN agency linked to Hamas,” September 9, 2026:

The organization UN Watch claims in a report that 12% of the agency’s employees in Gaza are members of terrorist groups. This data was allegedly obtained by cross-referencing employee lists with Hamas records seized by the Israel Defense Forces.

Featured in Cleveland Jewish News, “UN Watch report: UNRWA overstated reform implementation,” September 16, 2026:

According to a new investigation by the NGO UN Watch, the results of which were released on Monday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) overstated its completion of reforms promised to donor governments following revelations that employees participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. UN Watch documented that while UNRWA publicly claimed it had completed 41 of 50 reforms recommended by the Colonna Review, many of them were implemented on paper only.

Featured in Religion News Service, “Israel is not an etrog. It doesn’t have to be flawless to be legitimate,” September 28, 2026:

The pattern of focus on Israel runs deep. By UN Watch’s count, the General Assembly last year adopted 15 resolutions on Israel and 11 for the rest of the world combined — including six in one committee session and none on Sudan, where war has killed more than 150,000 people in three years, according to at least one estimate (death tolls remain highly uncertain).

Featured in Israel 365 News, “112 UNHRC resolutions against Israel, zero against Sudan building chemical weapons while sitting on the Human Rights Council,” September 10, 2026:

In December 2022, the UN’s Economic and Social Council expelled Iran from the separate Commission on the Status of Women mid-term, over its deadly crackdown on women protesting the death of Mahsa Amini. Fifteen months later, in March 2024, that same Commission elected Saudi Arabia, a country that maintains a male guardianship system controlling women’s ability to travel, marry, and make basic legal decisions, as its chair. UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer called the appointment akin to putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank.

Featured in Emes, “An employee honoured at a ceremony appears as an armed Hamas terrorist,” August 31, 2026:

On 8 June 2026, his name was read out at the UN’s annual memorial service for staff members killed in the line of duty. Secretary-General António Guterres attended the ceremony, at which 136 staff members were commemorated, including 80 UNRWA staff from Gaza. It was only after Hamas released the video that UN Watch identified the staff member being commemorated as the same person who appears in the footage as a member of the military wing.

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

UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer appeared on ILTV with Calev Ben-David to discuss the high-level opening of the UN General Assembly and the overt bias of UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

Transcript:

Calev Ben-David, ILTV: Joining us now for more is Hillel Neuer. He is the Executive Director of UN Watch. And of course, this is a busy time of the year for you, Hillel, with plenty of material there at the UN General Assembly.

Let’s start with your comments, which you put out in a tweet about Antonio Guterres. The Secretary-General predictably criticized Israel in his address. Maybe just talk about your reaction to his remarks.

Hillel Neuer: Look, it’s not the first time that he has chosen to make this kind of comparison, where he says that Israel is doing something that’s the worst he’s ever seen in his entire life or in his entire tenure. And the fact is, it’s false.

He says that what’s happening in Gaza is the worst situation he’s ever seen, the scale unprecedented from anything he’s witnessed. Well, in the time that he’s been Secretary-General, perhaps he didn’t notice, but hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Sudan, in Syria, in Ukraine, in Yemen, in Ethiopia, and the list goes on.

So, just factually, by any measure, if you look at Hamas’s maximalist figures, the other situations that I mentioned are far greater. The other piece which is significant is that Hamas invaded Israel. Hamas launched a massacre on October 7, killing 1,200 people in one day—the equivalent of 12 9/11 attacks proportionally, if you compare Israel’s population to America.

Israel responded to destroy Hamas, with innocent people killed. Of course, every innocent death is tragic. But Hamas launched a war. They launched a massacre with genocidal intent. Guterres erases all of that and falsely says it’s the worst he’s witnessed. The only way it’s the worst is if he was willfully blind to everything else happening in the world. Very sad.

Calev Ben-David: Now, Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to be speaking on Thursday. He’s put out a statement already saying he’ll go there to tell the truth about Israel’s heroic soldiers. Presumably, he’ll also speak on Iran and perhaps on Gaza. He also said he’ll talk about New York Mayor Mamdani.

What do you think the Prime Minister—what do you think he should be saying, will say, and should be saying there to the GA?

Hillel Neuer: Well, I think that he is going to make the case for Israel, as he always does. I think he’s certainly going to identify Iran as the head of the snake, which it is in the region. It’s the cause of war and terrorism from Syria to Lebanon to Gaza to Iraq to Yemen, right now spilling over into Saudi Arabia.

So I think he’s going to certainly talk about the war in Iran. He’s going to talk about Israel’s war against Hamas. These are all important subjects. He has a very difficult challenge ahead of him. Israel’s standing in the world is at a low point, certainly Western democracies, whether it’s Britain, Canada, Australia and other countries.

We saw France taking an unfair hit at Israel. We saw Macron just the other day. I think Netanyahu will hit him back. Macron said in French, basically, that Hamas never ravaged the West Bank the way it did in Gaza, so Israel has no excuse to act in the West Bank. And then he was attacked for it because, of course, Hamas has killed many people in the West Bank, in Judea and Samaria.

His office said that he said Hamas never governed, but that’s not the typical use of the French word according to any dictionary. So I think Macron will get hit. Let’s keep in mind, Macron is whitewashing Abbas. He talks about sovereignty for the Palestinians. A year ago, he defended his decision to recognize the State of Palestine, saying that he’s being criticized for doing something on paper. It was a fiction. There is no State of Palestine.

If we talk about Abbas, even the mayor of Paris in France stripped Abbas of a major award because of his remarks denying the Holocaust, justifying Hitler. So you have the mayor of Paris recognizing that Abbas is a Holocaust denier. His PhD from the Soviet Union is on Holocaust denial. And you have the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, whitewashing this defender of Hitler. It’s rather shameful.

Calev Ben-David: What about some of your response to President Trump’s remarks? He was a bit—I want to say—restrained when it comes to President Trump. I mean, he certainly has strong statements about Iran. Notably, he did not criticize the UN itself, something he’s done in the past, including last year. I mean, what was your response? How did you feel about President Trump’s remarks?

Hillel Neuer: Well, I think President Trump, interestingly, though in some cases he has a sledgehammer on certain issues. On the UN, it’s important to note he’s never said, “Destroy the UN.” Even when he signed executive orders pulling out of certain UN bodies, he said the UN has great potential. We need to make it great again.

His ambassador, who’s very busy in New York, Ambassador Mike Waltz, and Jeff Bartos, the ambassador for UN reform, have cut a lot of money from the UN budget, but they’ve talked about making the UN great again. So I think President Trump was consistent with his narrative.

He did, at the same time, call out UN human rights officials on certain of the remarks, either dealing with migration or transgender mutilation, as he put it. And let’s keep in mind that there are UN human rights officials who are, in the words of Guterres himself, “totally out of control.”

Whether it’s Francesca Albanese, who just said two days ago that the Western world should stop arming Ukraine, basically allowing Russia to destroy innocent people in Ukraine; whether it’s the Chairman of the UN Human Rights Officials, Mr. George Katrougalos, who recently gave a speech where he mentions China 32 times, yet not once criticized China or Xi Jinping, didn’t mention 1 million Uyghurs locked up, didn’t mention 6,000 Tibetan temples destroyed, didn’t mention Hong Kong democracy extinguished, and 78-year-old pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai languishing in prison.

So there’s a lot to talk about on the UN human rights officials. I’m glad President Trump put a finger on that.

Calev Ben-David: Is it worth it for Prime Minister Netanyahu to speak from the podium at the UN General Assembly, given all the Israel-bashing there?

Hillel Neuer: Yes. You can’t escape the world. This is the world as it is. It’s a tremendous forum. Prime Minister Netanyahu is a very accomplished speaker. So it’s a unique opportunity to address the world. He’s obviously, of course, addressing the Israeli people. He has an election coming up. You may be looking at his domestic audience more than anything.

But for Israel, it’s a tremendous opportunity to make its case before the world. And I hope Prime Minister Netanyahu will use felicitous language and eloquent language to make Israel’s case as the only democracy in the Middle East fighting to defend itself from terrorists.

The post Hillel Neuer on ILTV: Guterres’ Double Standard on Gaza Exposed appeared first on UN Watch.

Hillel Neuer appeared on Newsmax with Emma Rechenberg and Jon Glasgow to discuss New York City Mayor Mamdani’s empty threat to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and to lend insight into the future of the United Nations and its next leader.

Transcript:

Emma Rechenberg, Newsmax: Hillel, Mayor Mamdani must realize he cannot arrest Netanyahu as mayor of New York. Is this all a distraction?

Hillel Neuer: Mamdani’s politics are clear. He has radical politics. He’s someone who, when he mentions 9/11, he tries to equalize victims of America with what happened in New York, kind of a justification for some of the radical ideology. You know, he was elected to provide security and safety for the people of New York. Two hundred foreign dignitaries are about to descend upon Manhattan. He has a very serious responsibility.

Instead, for the past several months, he’s been grandstanding. He threatened initially to arrest Netanyahu. Then he said he wouldn’t, but he would understand if there are major protests. Look, New York has professionals in the police and other agencies. They’re going to do everything to lower the temperature. The problem is that the mayor is doing the opposite with his inflammatory rhetoric.

It’s the opposite of what New Yorkers need. He’s trying to pretend that he has a foreign policy. He’s the mayor. He wants to meet with radical left politicians like Lula da Silva of Brazil and Pedro Sanchez of Spain. It’s time for him to focus on what New Yorkers need, which is safety, security, and competence.

Emma Rechenberg, Newsmax: The United Nations, although it’s a major event with all these world leaders coming together in one spot, the president has expressed frustration with this General Assembly in the past. We’ve really questioned what they’re actually able to achieve. The Secretary-General will be leaving his position at the end of the year, after nearly a decade. Is there any expectation as to who would take on that role next? And really, what does the future of the UN look like?

Hillel Neuer: The United Nations is facing a very serious test. There’s a race now to succeed the Secretary-General, but I’d say that there’s a race to be relevant. Let’s keep in mind that we have crises around the world. In Sudan, there are some 14 million people displaced. Hundreds of thousands have been killed, wounded. The UN is doing nothing to solve that problem.

When we look at the wars in the Middle East, whether it’s the war launched by Hamas on October 7th or Iran bombing its neighbors from Israel to the Gulf, the United Nations is completely irrelevant. If there’s any movement, whether it’s you know Russia and Ukraine, it’s countries like the U.S. and a few others who get involved, but the UN is really not relevant.

So there’s major tests facing the UN Secretary-General. There’s no clear indication of who will lead. The few people who, on the initial straw polls, who’ve been leading are not substantial personalities who are well known. And keep in mind, to win the spot, you have to be approved not only by the U.S. but by Russia and China. So to imagine that you’ll have someone with a spine is a very hard expectation, given the regimes they have to appease.

Jon Glasgow, Newsmax: The Trump administration has said the UN has lost its teeth. It’s a gathering of world leaders, but really, nothing happens.

Hillel Neuer: It’s a catwalk for dictators.

The post Hillel Neuer on Newsmax: “When we look at the wars in the Middle East, the UN is completely irrelevant.” appeared first on UN Watch.

Ahead of the United Nations’ planned “Durban 25” commemoration on September 28, Hillel Neuer was interviewed by Ben Chertoff of HonestReporting to discuss how the notorious 2001 World Conference Against Racism became a global forum for antisemitism and the demonization of Israel.

Conversation Highlights:

Ben Chertoff: 25 years ago, the U.S. walked out of the World Conference Against Racism. Israel walked with them. What was that conference supposed to be, and what did it become?

Hillel Neuer: This was supposed to be the World Conference Against Racism, held in the new post-apartheid South Africa. And yet what happened really was a travesty. A conference that was supposed to be against racism became a conference that promoted racism. It devolved into a notorious hate fest.

There were thousands of people marching in Durban, South Africa, saying that Zionism is like Nazism. And there were pamphlets being distributed of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the czarist forgery that accuses the Jews of a plot to control the world.  This was happening on the sidelines.

At the main conference itself, Israel was the only country singled out as an alleged perpetrator of racism by listing the Palestinians as the only group under the rubric of victims of racism. The NGO forum, which happened in parallel, accused Israel of words that are familiar today, but were not then, which was genocide and apartheid, crimes against humanity.

So much of the venom and the hate that we’re seeing today can be attributed back to what we saw at an international, so-called anti-racism, so-called human rights conference 25 years ago.

Ben Chertoff: Now, what is astounding is that on September 28th, the UN General Assembly will hold a high-level meeting marking 25 years since Durban. In plain terms, what’s actually going on in that room, and what does it say that this is still being celebrated?

Hillel Neuer: The Durban conference happened in 2001, and the United Nations has a practice of holding follow-up conferences to put new attention on the same issues. In 2009 they held the first follow-up conference, Durban 2. Our organization, UN Watch, played a key role in organizing counter-events. And then Durban 3 was the 10th anniversary in 2011.  Fast-forward to 2021 for the 20th anniversary — that was Durban 4.

On September 28th, I expect that what we’re going to see possibly foreign ministers, but at least ambassadors, gather for a meeting to adopt a declaration reaffirming Durban. So we’re calling on all countries to pull out and have a petition on our website urging all countries to do so.

At the original Durban conference, the U.S. and Israel pulled out. In 2009, 10 countries pulled out. In the third time, there were 15 countries that pulled out. And the last time, five years ago, 38 countries pulled out. So we’re hoping to see the same. We hope that leading democracies who truly care about anti-racism will take a stand against antisemitism.

Ben Chertoff: Since October 7, there has been a global explosion of antisemitism. Has there been any movement in the UN structure to address that?

Hillel Neuer: Not really. On the contrary, I would say the United Nations has been a key driver of global antisemitism. Let’s keep in mind, just a couple of weeks after October 7th, the Secretary-General of the UN effectively gave legitimacy and justification for what Hamas did. That was shameful and it set a tone. You had Navi Pillay, who was head of the Commission of Inquiry targeting Israel, she echoed those terms.

You have the infamous rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, who supports Hamas. On October 7, she was saying it’s just a response to oppression and you have to see it in context. So you have numerous UN figures, especially at the Human Rights Council, condemning Israel. Has the UN done anything to stop antisemitism? No. On the contrary, the UN has been a global purveyor of antisemitism.

When these blood libels go around the world, that Israel is committing genocide or starving the Palestinians, which various UN-tainted agencies have claimed, then immediately Jews are called baby killers. And we’ve seen endless attacks against Jews around the world — in the United States, in the UK, in continental Europe, Canada, Australia — and the UN sadly bears a lot of the blame.

The post Hillel Neuer with HonestReporting: How Durban Became an Antisemitic Hate Fest appeared first on UN Watch.

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.