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Speaking at the 63rd Session of the UN Human Rights Council during a panel on human rights education, Neta Heiman Mina, daughter of 84-year-old former hostage Ditza Heiman, delivered a joint statement on behalf of UN Watch directly confronting the United Nations over its continued funding and defense of UNRWA. After her mother was held hostage for 48 days in the attic of an UNRWA teacher following the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz, Mina’s testimony exposed the stark contradiction between the UN’s stated commitment to human rights education and the documented complicity of the UN’s own education personnel in terrorism and hostage-taking. Her intervention highlights the urgent necessity for international bodies and global donors to hold UNRWA accountable, urging the UN to seek uncompromised alternatives that guarantee education, healthcare, and food security for Gaza’s children without entrusting their future to individuals tied to extremist violence.

Transcript: 

My name is Neta Heiman Mina. On October 7th, my mother, Ditza, was 84 years old when she was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas terrorists.

For 48 days, an UNRWA teacher, Abed, kept her trapped in his attic in terrible conditions with very little food. I ask the United Nations: how could you place the education of Gaza’s next generation with someone involved in holding an elderly woman hostage?

My mother wasn’t the only one. We know of other UNRWA employees connected to the massacre and kidnappings of October 7th. Why did UNRWA allow Suhail al-Hindi to be in charge of 8,000 teachers in Gaza while he was a member of Hamas? If the UN truly cares about human rights and education, how can it allow an agency compromised by terrorism to shape the future of Palestinian children?

I believe the vacuum must be filled. The UN and the Board of Peace must find alternatives to provide Gaza’s children with healthcare, education, and food security. As an activist with Women Wage Peace, I believe Israel should support this effort. It is the moral and the Jewish thing to do. When the people of Gaza have a better life, our future will be better too.

The post My Mother Was Held Hostage by an UNRWA Teacher: Neta Heiman Mina Addresses UN Human Rights Council appeared first on UN Watch.

UN Watch investigation finds the agency substituted paperwork and promises for meaningful change

GENEVA, 14 September 2026 — UNRWA’s claim to have completed 41 of the 50 reforms recommended by the landmark Colonna Review substantially overstates the changes achieved on the ground, according to a major new report released today by UN Watch.

The “Report Card on UNRWA Reform” examines UNRWA’s implementation of every recommendation issued by the Independent Review Group led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.

Commissioned by UN Secretary-General António Guterres following revelations that UNRWA employees participated in the October 7 massacre and amid the suspension of $450 million in donor funding, the Colonna Review was intended to determine whether the agency’s neutrality safeguards were “fit for purpose” and to restore donor confidence.

Two years later, UNRWA says that 41 recommendations are completed. Yet UN Watch’s analysis finds that UNRWA frequently measured administrative activity instead of meaningful reform. At most, the new report concludes, 13 of Colonna’s 50 recommendations have actually been completed as prescribed.

“UNRWA has graded its own homework and awarded itself high marks,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. “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.”

“On paper, UNRWA reports sweeping progress. 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.”

Key Findings

• UNRWA redefined what counts as completion. Under its “Minimum Viable Product” methodology, UNRWA allows itself to classify a recommendation as completed once it considers the recommendation’s “core functional objective” achieved—even where further measures remain necessary and the reform has not been fully institutionalized.
• UNRWA still lacks a demonstrated system for screening its workforce for Hamas membership. Its principal sanctions screening relies on the UN Security Council Consolidated Sanctions List, which does not list Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
• External investigations continue to uncover what UNRWA’s internal systems missed. In June 2026, the USAID Office of Inspector General referred 108 current or former UNRWA personnel for suspension or debarment based on evidence linking them to the October 7 attacks or Hamas’s military wing. Days later, UNRWA dismissed 70 Gaza employees following a security assessment, while insisting that the dismissals did not validate the allegations against them. See also UN Watch’s statement on the dismissals.
• UNRWA closed union reforms that were never implemented. The agency classified revisions to its Staff Union Statute as completed after merely drafting and transmitting a proposed statute, even though the unions had not adopted it. Yet within months of this supposed reform achievement, the UNRWA Gaza Staff Union—still under unchanged leadership—mobilized against the dismissal of the 70 terror-linked employees and demanded their reinstatement. UN Watch’s report Schools in the Grip of Terror documents how Hamas-linked officials continue to dominate UNRWA staff unions.
• One recommendation was closed as “unimplementable.” Recommendation 46 called for outsourcing union pay-setting functions. UNRWA determined that the measure could not be implemented, yet still counted the recommendation as closed.
• Vetting reforms remain dependent on funding. UNRWA closed recommendations concerning commercial screening and the vetting of union officials after developing pilots and costed plans, although the actual systems had not been fully deployed.
• Educational reform is measured by procedures rather than content. UNRWA cites reviews, digital platforms, teacher training and engagement with UNESCO as evidence of progress, while post-Colonna assessments by IMPACT-se continue to identify antisemitism, glorification of terrorism and incitement in the 2025–2026 Palestinian Authority curriculum used in UNRWA schools.
• Training cannot prevent deliberate military misuse of UNRWA facilities. The Colonna Review acknowledged that UNRWA lacks the policing, military and investigative capabilities required to detect weapons, tunnels and military activity at its installations. New policies and awareness programs do not remedy this fundamental incapacity. The standard inspection regime still does not operate normally in Gaza, where the most serious allegations have arisen.
• UNRWA declared a “cultural shift” completed while describing it as ongoing. The agency classified all recommendations on enhanced cooperation as complete even as its own reporting acknowledged that the required institutional transformation remained underway.

Structural Failure, Not a Paperwork Problem

The report finds that many of the Colonna recommendations proposed potentially useful administrative improvements. However, they did not adequately address the deeper institutional causes of UNRWA’s neutrality crisis: terrorist infiltration among personnel, Hamas influence over staff unions and schools, the agency’s inability to investigate clandestine affiliations, and an institutional culture deeply embedded in the Palestinian political struggle against Israel.

“The central question is not how many policies UNRWA has written, training sessions it has conducted or recommendations it has marked complete,” Neuer said. “The question is whether UNRWA can prevent its schools, staff and facilities from serving terrorism and incitement. The evidence examined in this report shows that it cannot.”

“The Colonna process was designed to reassure donors. Our report tests that reassurance against the evidence—and finds a profound gap between reform claimed and reform achieved.”

UN Watch called on donor governments not to rely on UNRWA’s self-reported completion figures when deciding whether to resume or continue funding. Governments should require independent verification of each claimed reform and assess whether it has produced measurable changes in staff conduct, educational content, union activity and the protection of UN facilities.

“Donor states were promised reform,” Neuer said. “Instead of delivering proof of results, UNRWA offers policies on paper, pilot projects awaiting funding, or recommendations closed by administrative decree.”

The report concludes that UNRWA’s failures cannot be repaired through managerial adjustments. Its mandate, workforce and role in Palestinian society are inseparable from a political project that perpetuates refugee status, the claimed “right of return” and rejection of Israel. UNRWA employs more than 28,000 people, overwhelmingly locally recruited Palestinians, while only about 120 staff are international.

“The Colonna reforms cannot make politically neutral an institution whose fundamental structure and purpose sustain the grievances and ideology exploited by Hamas,” said Neuer. “Humanitarian assistance for needy Gazans must continue, but it should be delivered through institutions capable of operating independently of terrorism and the political perpetuation of the conflict.”

The Report

The full report, Report Card on UNRWA Reform: An Evaluation of the Agency’s Claims Against the Evidence on Implementation of the Colonna Report, is available here.  Related UN Watch resources include the UNRWA Terror Network and Schools in the Grip of Terror.

About UN Watch

UN Watch is a Geneva-based independent human rights organization accredited in special consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Founded in 1993, UN Watch monitors the performance of the United Nations according to the principles of its Charter and advocates for victims of human rights abuses worldwide.

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At a UN memorial ceremony on June 8, 2026, both officials helped light an eternal flame honoring fallen UN personnel, with El Samhouri’s name read aloud before them.

According to a Hamas martyr video, El Samhouri served as a field commander in the Muhammad al-Shamali Battalion of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades. The footage shows him emerging from terrorist tunnels and declaring that jihad was his chosen path:

El Samhour’s publicly available social-media record also documented close ties to Hamas officials, glorification of terrorism, and the use of UNRWA schools to host Hamas figures and steer students toward Hamas-linked organizations.

In the open letter below, Neuer demands an independent investigation into how a Hamas commander was permitted to run UNRWA schools for more than a decade—and who within the agency knew or should have known. He also calls on Guterres and Baerbock to apologize to Hamas’s victims, disclose all UNRWA employees found to have terrorist ties, and hold accountable the supervisors and senior officials responsible.

Meet Imad Yousif El Samhouri, veteran UNRWA teacher and school principal.

L: Samhouri honored by UN chief Antonio Guterres
R: Samhouri in Hamas terrorist martyr video

Samhouri’s terror ties were known. 🧵⬇️

Why are 🇫🇷🇩🇪🇬🇧🇳🇴🇳🇱🇨🇭🇮🇹🇨🇦 funding terrorists to teach Palestinian kids? pic.twitter.com/7e4WmR3rfQ

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 13, 2026

Open Letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UNGA President Annalena Baerbock from Hillel Neuer

Dear Secretary-General Antonio Guterres,
Dear UNGA President Annalena Baerbock,

Will you apologize for lighting a flame at a recent UN ceremony to honor a Hamas terrorist commander before the world?

Will you finally acknowledge that UNRWA is simply unwilling or unable to root out the terrorists who have taken over its schools?

On June 8, 2026, on the one-year anniversary of UNRWA teacher Imad El Samhouri’s death, you lit an eternal flame to “pay tribute” to his memory and that of other UN “family members.”

(His name was read out in front of both of you, at 27:45 in this video, as seen here.)

But El Samhouri was not only a teacher and principal in multiple UNRWA schools. He was a military commander in the Hamas terrorist organization, seen with grenades, machine guns, and coming in and out of terror tunnels.

When wearing his UNRWA educator uniform, your colleague brought Hamas officials into UNRWA schools to address students and preside at ceremonies. He used your schools to scout and recruit “talent” for Hamas-linked clubs.

A quick glance at your colleague’s social media—photos of him with Hamas officials, posts glorifying the kidnapping and murder of Jews—shows that he was hiding in plain sight. UNRWA officials and colleagues knew.

According to a recently-published martyr video, Hamas confirmed that the UN colleague whom you honored—as “fallen in the line of duty”—held the rank of Hamas Field Commander in the Muhammad al-Shamali Battalion of the Al-Qassam Rafah Brigade.

The UNRWA teacher and school principal whom you honored is seen in the video declaring that “Death in the cause of Allah is our highest aspiration.”

Excellencies, is this not the complete antithesis of the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrines the right to life?

The person who served as a UN teacher and principal at multiple Gaza schools for over a decade said, “We have chosen Jihad as our path.”

Excellencies, is this not a betrayal of the United Nations Charter, whose preamble calls on us to “practice tolerance and live together in peace”?

The UNRWA teacher for whom you lit the eternal flame says, “Praise be to Allah [for] the tunnels… the Zionist enemy never imagines we will emerge from beneath the ground, the rubble.”

Excellencies, how many UNRWA teachers must emerge from Hamas tunnels before you admit that the terrorists are not merely beneath UNRWA’s schools, but actually inside them?

Excellencies, if an UNRWA children’s school principal emerging from Hamas tunnels does not compel you to confront the agency’s terrorist infiltration, what possibly will?

Secretary-General Guterres, I must remind you: not only did you honor this UNRWA teacher with the eternal flame, but you said that it was “the privilege of my life” to work alongside people like him; that you “commit to carrying forward their work”; that people like El Samhouri “made our world a better place.”

Now that the man you praised has been exposed as a Hamas field commander, do you stand by those words? Is Imad El Samhouri’s work—the jihad, the terror tunnels, the indoctrination of children—the work you intend to carry forward?

Will you retract your tribute, apologize to the victims of Hamas, and order an independent investigation into how a terrorist commander was allowed to run UNRWA schools for more than a decade?

Mr. Secretary-General, will you hold to account—including by supporting criminal prosecutions on charges of material support for terrorism—all of the complicit UNRWA colleagues, supervisors, and high officials including Philippe Lazzarini?

President Baerbock, this is also a question for you. During the years you served as Germany’s foreign minister, your government provided UNRWA with €570 million ($620 million). Germany was one of the agency’s largest donors.

Madam President, after committing nearly €570 million of German taxpayer money to UNRWA, how did you fail to discover that one of its longtime school principals—working as part of a network of more than 400 other UNRWA staff—was openly involved with Hamas?

In our UN Watch reports, we warned your government multiple times.

Why did you resume funding UNRWA before demanding genuine accountability for its terrorist infiltration?

Will you now acknowledge that Germany’s assurances about UNRWA oversight were catastrophically wrong?

Will you apologize for joining in the tribute to the Hamas commander your government helped employ?

Excellencies, please be aware that we will be writing to the foreign ministers of all UNRWA donors—including the European Union (which gave UNRWA $134 million last year) Germany ($119M), Spain ($38M), Norway ($38M), France ($31M), Ireland ($21M), Denmark ($21M), Swiss ($17M), Netherlands ($16M), Luxembourg ($16M), Belgium ($13M)—to urge their government to stop funding Hamas terrorists as UNRWA teachers and school principals who teach hate and jihad to Palestinian children.

We urge you to retract the tribute to Imad El Samhouri, apologize to the victims of Hamas, commission a genuinely independent investigation, and disclose the identities of every UNRWA employee found to have terrorist ties, as well as every supervisor and senior official who knew or should have known.

There can be no immunity, impunity, or eternal flame for terrorists who infiltrate the United Nations.

Sincerely,
Hillel C. Neuer
United Nations Watch
Geneva, Switzerland

Dear Secretary-General @antonioguterres,
Dear President Annalena Baerbock @UN_PGA,

Will you apologize for lighting a flame at a recent UN ceremony to honor a Hamas terrorist commander before the world?

Will you finally acknowledge that UNRWA is simply unwilling or unable to… https://t.co/A23p3LTxjN pic.twitter.com/lGEf3ShdBD

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 14, 2026

Transcript of El Samhouri’s Hamas martyr video:

[Song] O free men marching toward Jerusalem, Who is like you, O people of sacrifice? O procession of the pure, O martyrs from among our noble people. With love and greetings Heroes of the Flood.

Samhouri: “This is the roadmap to liberation and glorious victory we trace it with our blood and chart it with steadfast resistance.

A morning’s or evening’s journey in the cause of Allah is better than this world and all it contains. The call to arms has resounded in the hearts of the faithful and they have answered the call. Allah is the Greatest. Here I am for you, O Holy City. Here I am, O site of the Messenger of Allah’s Night Journey.

Here I am for you, O beloved Palestine. The suns of my beloved have set; they dismounted and departed. We press on in our jihad, our hearts yearning for Al-Quds Al-Sharif, our eyes fixed on our heroic prisoners, and the plight of the refugees alive in our hearts.

We have chosen jihad as our path; our anthem is that Death in the cause of Allah is our highest aspiration, and our resolve will not waver, no matter how long the road or how great the sacrifices. Our grief is deep—so be patient.

They were here; we were together, but they have departed from this place. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds who has honored us with the tunnels and made them a means of resistance a means by which the Zionist enemy never imagines we will emerge from beneath the ground, from beneath the rubble, from between the demolished homes.

With my heart, my soul, and my conscience, my brothers, I weep for you. I see you, layer upon layer, O our refuge.

Companions on Allah’s path in this life you are our pride this life is our pride. My family and my brothers, by Allah, I love you with a love known only to Allah; but this is the call the call to jihad, which the prophets the righteous, and the martyrs answered and they charted the path for us with their blood.

In conclusion, I bear witness I bear witness before Allah the Exalted and Glorious that I have forgiven everyone who has wronged me even with a single word. My brothers, this will was written on Tuesday, December 11, 2007.

This was not my first will— it may be my second or third in 2007 at 4:25 p.m. And as you depart, my heart, once desolate is now satisfied. Your brother, a living martyr, Allah willing: Abu Yusuf, Imad Yusuf al-Samhouri.

The suns of my beloved have set; they dismounted and departed. And my heart, once desolate, has now found solace.”

6/ Evidence from Samhouri's network confirms that UNRWA became a subsidiary of Hamas.

Muhammad Al-Bardawil headed UNRWA's Rafah Prep School B for Boys. His deputy Samhouri was a Hamas Commander.

They repeatedly brought Hamas terrorists into the school: https://t.co/4l5HVZzVq0 pic.twitter.com/lJkTDuIEaZ

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 13, 2026

The post UN Leaders Lit an Eternal Flame for a Hamas Commander 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.

The letter argues that immunity exists solely to protect the interests of the United Nations—not individual officials—and must be waived where it would impede the course of justice without prejudicing the Organization’s interests.

“For years, we repeatedly warned Mr. Lazzarini that Hamas had deeply infiltrated UNRWA,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch. “We provided detailed evidence identifying Hamas-affiliated teachers, school principals, union leaders, and other employees. We documented repeated meetings between senior UNRWA officials—including Mr. Lazzarini himself—and leaders of Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Yet 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.”

UN Watch contends that despite repeated warnings, Lazzarini continued to oversee the payment of salaries to thousands of UNRWA employees in Gaza, many of whom have since been shown to have deep ties to Hamas and other terrorist organizations, while continuing to administer facilities that provided terrorist groups with access to students, infrastructure, and institutional legitimacy. The letter states that these facts establish 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 Secretary-General Guterres to publicly waive any applicable immunity without delay and to ensure the full cooperation of the United Nations with any resulting criminal investigation.

“The credibility of the United Nations depends on demonstrating that immunity is not a shield for impunity,” Neuer said.

Also today, UNRWA held a pledging conference at the United Nations in New York, with several countries announcing voluntary contributions for the Agency’s 2026 operations amid ongoing concerns over its management and neutrality. UN Watch warns that without accountability for past leadership failures, further funding risks perpetuating the very problems that have undermined UNRWA’s credibility.

View the Letter to Secretary-General Guterres Here

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
The United Nations
New York, NY 10027
United States

30 June 2026

Re: Demand to Waive Immunity of Philippe Lazzarini for Crimes Against Humanity

Dear Secretary-General Guterres,

I write to demand that you exercise your authority under Article V, Section 20 of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations and immediately waive any immunity enjoyed by outgoing UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini for his alleged complicity in acts of terrorism, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, insofar as necessary to permit his investigation and prosecution by competent national authorities.

Immunity is granted solely in the interests of the United Nations, and not for personal benefit of the UN official, in this case, Mr. Lazzarini. Where immunity would impede the course of justice and can be waived without prejudice to the interests of the Organization, the Convention requires that it be waived. This is your duty.

For years, UN Watch repeatedly provided Mr. Lazzarini and his administration with detailed evidence of Hamas infiltration of UNRWA, including evidence concerning teachers, school principals, union leaders, and other employees who openly supported, assisted, or were affiliated with Hamas and other terrorist organizations. We documented repeated interactions between senior UNRWA officials—including Mr. Lazzarini himself—and leaders of Hamas and other terrorist groups. We warned that UNRWA facilities, resources, personnel, and institutional structures were being exploited for the benefit of terrorist organizations. Our online database mapping out the UNRWA terror network is here.

Despite these repeated warnings, Mr. Lazzarini continued to oversee the payment of salaries to thousands of UNRWA employees in Gaza, many of whom have since been shown to have deep ties to Hamas and other terrorist groups. He continued to administer facilities that provided terrorist organizations with access to students, employees, infrastructure, and institutional legitimacy. He continued to assure donor governments and the public that UNRWA’s neutrality mechanisms were functioning effectively, even as evidence of terrorist infiltration continued to mount.

These facts raise grave questions as to whether Mr. Lazzarini knowingly facilitated, enabled, or provided material support and assistance to individuals and entities involved in terrorism, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. At a minimum, they establish reasonable grounds to investigate whether he bears responsibility for complicity in such crimes.

No credible commitment to accountability can permit the head of a United Nations agency to invoke immunity while serious allegations of this magnitude remain beyond the reach of criminal investigators. The interests of justice require that competent authorities be allowed to determine the facts.

We therefore call upon you to waive any applicable immunity for Mr. Lazzarini without delay, publicly announce that decision, and ensure the full cooperation of the United Nations with any resulting criminal investigation.

The credibility of the United Nations depends on demonstrating that immunity is not a shield of impunity for pepetrators of terrorism, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

Sincerely,

Hillel C. Neuer
Executive Director

The post UN Watch Calls on UN Chief to Waive Philippe Lazzarini’s Immunity for Criminal Investigation appeared first on UN Watch.

Jan Eliasson, ex-Swedish foreign minister and UN deputy secretary-general, fired off the demand after a user likened UNRWA — the UN’s scandal-plagued Palestinian refugee agency — to the Nazi party’s structure.

Eliasson first defended UNRWA as the “backbone” for schools, health care and infrastructure in Palestinian communities. Then he declared that comparing any UN agency to the Nazis during World War II “should lead to mass blocking on X.”

UN Watch chief Hillel Neuer blasted the call and questioned Eliasson’s support for the agency.

“Why did you support UNRWA while they put Suheil al-Hindi in charge of their 8,000 teachers in Gaza, teaching three hundred thousand children to glorify murdering Jews?” Neuer replied.

Al-Hindi, a longtime UNRWA teacher, school principal and Gaza staff union boss, is a longtime member of the Hamas Politburo in Gaza. He was photographed alongside Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar.

The agency has faced withering criticism for employing Hamas terrorists and hiring antisemitic teachers and school principals who promote jihad and martyrdom. Many of the Oct. 7 Hamas attackers were reportedly educated in its schools. Johann Soufi, UNRWA’s former legal advisor, said that 90% of Gazans attended UNRWA schools.

“Nazis educated their children to hate and kill Jews. UNRWA educates Palestinian children to hate and kill Jews,” one user noted. “Nazis committed pogroms. People educated at UNRWA’s schools committed the Oct. 7 pogroms.”

Eliasson’s push to silence debate has so far backfired, fueling fresh outrage over the UN’s role in perpetuating hatred and terror under the guise of humanitarian aid.

This is not the first time that Eliasson and Neuer have clashed. As UN General Assembly president in 2006, Eliasson debated Neuer on the BBC about the newly reformed UN Human Rights Council, with the Swedish diplomat then insisting that the body would be credible and suspend serial abusers from its membership. In the two decades since then, the Council went on to elect China, Cuba, Venezuela, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, Somalia, Qatar, Bangladesh, and Burundi — none of which has ever been suspended.

BREAKING: Former Swedish foreign minister and deputy U.N. chief Jan Eliasson calls for “mass blocking on X” of anyone who compares UNRWA to the Nazis. https://t.co/Z9SsqjQpF6

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) June 30, 2026

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Key Findings on Fired UNRWA Employees:

• 1. Mohammed M. Issa: Publicly lionized senior Hamas military commanders, called on the “resistance” to abduct more Israeli citizens to initiate prisoner exchanges, and distributed highly disturbing propaganda imagery of infants holding automatic weapons.
• 2. Mohammad Juma Shuwaideh: Publicly exposed by state intelligence as a Hamas squad commander, openly rejected institutional neutrality mandates, and maintained administrative oversight of a facility beneath which an operational terrorist attack tunnel network operated.
• 3. Mohamed Ghorab: Explicitly celebrated the October 7th massacres as “blessed,” publicly praised a family-linked militant who served 22 years for a violent stabbing attack, and openly used his digital footprint to publish explicit calls to jihad.

Last week, Acting Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Christian Saunders, announced the immediate termination of 70 staff members in the Gaza Strip. UNRWA’s official statement expressly stated that the terminations were “not part of a disciplinary process” and that they are not intended as “a validation of the claims made against” the employees. Instead, the statement carefully framed the decision as a precautionary measure taken under its legal framework to mitigate “safety and security risks” for both its personnel and the refugees it serves.

The statement’s inherent contradiction was exposed when the UN spokesman was unable to explain why UNRWA would terminate 70 employees if the decision was neither punitive nor evidence-based. Instead, he said only that “the situation in UNRWA is rather complex and challenging,” and that the Commissioner-General sometimes must take “decisions that are not easy to take, but that are in the best interest of the Organization.”

It’s clear that UNRWA is engaging in damage control: removing terrorists from its staff lists while continuing to deny to donor states that it employed them in the first place.

Despite UNRWA’s measured language, Palestinian militant factions, local staff unions, and political committees immediately erupted in protest:

• The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), which participated in the October 7th massacre, vowed that the firings “must not go unpunished.”
• The militant group “Ahrar Movement” condemned the action as “a clear capitulation to the pressures and political blackmail exerted by the Israeli occupation on international institutions operating in Palestine.”
• The Joint Committee for Palestinian Refugees, led by Mahmoud Khalaf—a close ally of Hamas Politburo member and former President of the UNRWA staff unions, Suhail al-Hindi—stated his “complete rejection of the decision to dismiss staff based on legally unsubstantiated accusations.”
• Suhail al-Hindi himself stated, “UNRWA’s decision to dismiss dozens of employees from Gaza is a stab in the back of Gaza and its resilience.”
• Mustafa al-Ghoul, the Hamas-affiliated current president of the UNRWA staff union in Gaza, complained that the “number of Arab employees in UNRWA in Gaza has decreased from about 13,000 to about 9,600 employees as a result of dismissals, martyrdom and resignations.”
• Rania Madi, senior advisor at Law for Palestine, stated that these are “serious and fabricated accusations directed at UNRWA to label it as supporting terrorism, simply because some of its employees express their support for the rights of their people, or because one of their family members has a connection to the Palestinian resistance…”
• The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement called it “submission to Zionist pressure” and “political blackmail.”

Collectively, these groups echo a core argument: UNRWA is unjustly punishing workers simply for expressing solidarity with the Palestinian cause or because of their family ties, in violation of the basic principle of “innocent until proven guilty.”

Yet the conduct that some of these employees themselves defend exposes a profound disconnect between local notions of “patriotism” and the neutrality required of UN personnel. Below, we profile the only three recently dismissed employees who have publicly acknowledged their firing and continue to claim innocence, despite openly championing conduct that is wholly incompatible with the principles the UN claims to uphold.

1. Mohammed M. Issa

On June 12, 2026, Mohammed M. Issa lamented on Facebook about being one of the 70 employees fired from UNRWA (archive link). Issa’s public defense was absolute:

“I categorically affirm that I do not belong to Hamas, have never belonged to it, and oppose it ideologically and politically. I also do not belong to any other organization. I will use all available legal means to challenge this decision.”

Issa’s recent digital footprint does show genuine frustration with Hamas, mostly driven by the well-documented anger of Palestinians with the Hamas leadership, who escaped to the Four Seasons in Doha, Qatar while leaving their population to suffer the consequences of its actions. In November 2024, Issa vented his frustration via a joke on Facebook about what the leader of Hamas, Khalil al-Hayya, was having for dinner:

Yet the question of whether Issa is formally affiliated with Hamas is ultimately beside the point. His claim to neutrality completely disintegrates upon review of his extensive social media history.

Exhibit 1: Public Support for Hamas Commanders

• Shared a post (archive link) celebrating Raed Al-Attar (Abu Ayman) and Muhammad Abu Shamala (Abu Khalil). Raed Al-Attar served as the commander of the Rafah company for the Al-Qassam Brigades. Muhammad Abu Shamala was a leader of the Brigades, serving as the sub-commander of the southern Gaza Strip.
• Published a post (archive link) celebrating Emad Akel, the deceased commander of the Brigades.

Exhibit 2: Celebration of Terrorists and Suicide Bombers

• Published a post (archive link) supporting Umm Nidal Farhat, known as the “Mother of Martyrs” for her vocal backing of her sons’ suicide bombings. She later became a member of Hamas.
• Shared a post (archive link) eulogizing Hamas terrorist Mohammed Assi, who helped organize a bus bombing in Tel Aviv that wounded 29 civilians.
• Shared a post (archive link) celebrating Samer Issawi, who was sentenced to 26 years in prison in 2002 for executing shooting attacks targeting Israeli police cars and university students at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
• Shared a post (archive link) celebrating Abdul Basit Odeh, the Qassam Brigades operative who carried out the horrific Park Hotel suicide bombing in Netanya, killing 30 people during a Passover seder.

Exhibit 3: Calls for the Abduction of Israelis

• Published a post (archive link) explicitly demanding that the “resistance” capture more Israeli soldiers to force future prisoner leverage exchanges.
• Published a post (archive link) calling for “a new Gilad,” referencing Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was captured and held hostage in Gaza for five years.

Exhibit 4: Incitement and Militant Alignment

Mohammed Issa shared an explicit image of an active combatant paired with the phrase “glory to the resistance.” (archive link)

Mohammed has also “dreamt that a missile launched at Tel Aviv accidentally hit a Zionist F-16 fighter jet in the skies over the Gaza Strip.” He adds, “It’s difficult, almost impossible, but worth the wait and the dream…” (Archive Link)

Exhibit 5: Armed Radicalization of Infants

Issa repeatedly shared deeply unsettling, militant propaganda photos portraying infants holding real automatic weapons. (archive link 1) (archive link 2)

2. Mohammad Juma Shuwaideh (Abu Firas)

On June 11, 2026, a screenshot of a text message sent by Mohammad Juma Shuwaideh confirming his administrative removal was posted (archive link) on Facebook. The text states:

“Praise be to God, before and after. A short while ago, I received the dismissal letter from the Agency [UNRWA]… on the charge of working in an armed organization.”

An organizational comment left on the post directly illuminates the structural footprint Shuwaideh maintained inside UNRWA operations:

”Of course, Abu Fares is the one who has been managing all the agency’s work since the beginning of the war in Gaza, and everyone testifies to him.”

Mohammad Juma Shuwaideh has been tracked by UN Watch for at least two years. In September 2025, he featured heavily within UN Watch’s published investigative report, “Schools in the Grip of Terror,” and was formally included in the comprehensive tracking network, “UNRWA Terror Network.”

Mohammad Juma Shuwaideh (aka “Abu Fares”) operated administratively as an UNRWA school principal at the UNRWA Zeitoun Prep A Boys School. He has held active membership within the UNRWA Gaza Staff Union executive circles since at least 2015. In that capacity, he has publicly defended internal union strikes that crippled vital community services against complaints by UNRWA aid recipients. In May 2020, current union president Mustafa Al-Ghoul published an image of the two together, introducing Shuwaideh as the acting Union Secretary while warmly calling him “brother.”

Shuwaideh has also publicly opposed UNRWA’s attempts to scrub violent or biased entries from classroom material. He strongly rejected the sanitization of specific religious texts referencing “jihad” and fought to retain instructional maps depicting sovereign Israeli cities (such as Haifa) entirely as Palestinian domain. He further demanded that UNRWA implement local educational tracking curricula “without any interference,” asserting that basic institutional neutrality criteria represented an explicit attack on foundational “national and Islamic values across both Gaza and the West Bank.”

Crucially, Shuwaideh is among twelve UNRWA educators formally and publicly identified by state officials in July 2024 as active militant operatives—explicitly holding a post as a Hamas Squad Commander assigned within the Gaza Brigades organization.

Furthermore, architectural tracking as early as 2021 disclosed that an active Hamas military underground tunnel was built directly beneath the school facility Shuwaideh managed. Despite generic public denunciations from agency headquarters concerning subterranean violations, the tunnel system was confirmed to be fully functional when military forces operated throughout the sector in 2023.

Despite these structural ties, UNRWA kept him on the payroll. On July 20, 2024, Shuwaideh uploaded an image of himself wearing a UN operational vest. Later, On October 19, 2024, Shuwaideh posted a photo of himself working at a computer while wearing an official agency-issued UNRWA sweatshirt.

UNRWA finally suspended Shuwaideh on or about April 27, 2025—just 24-hours before the Israeli Foreign Ministry highlighted his documented Hamas alignment during a high-profile press conference detailing deep structural ties between the aid agency and terror networks. The timing suggests the suspension was a damage-control measure, as UNRWA had been provided detailed evidence about Shuwaideh ten months earlier yet failed to take any administrative action.

Shuwaideh hails from an influential, highly integrated Hamas family network. He shares direct family ties with Ahmed Shuwaideh, the former Hamas Minister of Justice and Prisoners under Ismail Haniyeh. Following his death in 2008, Ahmed was publicly eulogized by Haniyeh as “a towering role model… and a man of steadfastness and jihad.” On his personal channels, Mohammad Shuwaideh directly validated this legacy, characterizing the Hamas leader as “a man loved by all.”

3. Mohamed Ghorab

On June 14, an online public Facebook statement (archive link) confirmed that Habib Muhammad Garab (Mohamed Ghorab) was officially among the 70 dismissed UNRWA employees. He is characterized as a “beloved teacher, well-known in the Shati refugee camp.” Notably, this educator never attempted to maintain an appearance of neutrality. Records show that he openly described his marriage into the family of a convicted militant.

Exhibit 1: Celebration of a Convicted Family Militant

On his public profile, Ghorab directly hailed the high-profile release of militant “hero” Iyad Mahmoud Abu Hashim from Israeli prison. Abu Hashim had finished a 22-year sentence handed down after he attempted a stabbing attack targeting an IDF soldier at the Rafah border crossing. Ghorab explicitly stated, “Congratulations to my in-laws, Al Abu Hashim,” clarifying the direct family connection. (Archive link)

Exhibit 2: Support for the October 7th Atrocities

On October 10th, just three days after the Hamas massacres across southern Israel, Mohamed Ghorab went online to explicitly endorse them: (archive link)

“The number of martyrs is far lower than the death tolls from earthquakes and hurricanes; the end is the same, but blessed are those who die as martyrs…”

Exhibit 3: Explicit Incitement to Holy Warfare

Ghorab explicitly validated militant radicalism, stating: “The glory of Jihad is a struggle, glory is lined with blood and a struggle.” (archive link)

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“Our sustained documentation of UNRWA’s deep infiltration by Hamas — including our UNRWA Terror Network map identifying at least 400 culprits — together with the USAID Inspector General, has finally forced the agency’s hand,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch. “For years UN Watch has exposed how UNRWA teachers, school principals, and other employees are intertwined with Hamas, including terror chiefs heading the staff unions. Today’s action, while welcome, is only a small beginning.”

UN Watch strongly condemns UNRWA’s accompanying official statement, which attempts to evade responsibility. The agency claims it asked Israel for evidence but received no response, yet it simultaneously insists the dismissals “do not constitute in any way a validation of the claims” and were taken only for “safety and security” reasons. This 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.

The reaction of the UNRWA Staff Union makes the problem even clearer. The union — long run by Hamas-linked employees, including terror chiefs such as Suhail al-Hindi, as documented by UN Watch — immediately rejected the decision as “arbitrary” and “without a fair investigation,” demanding its immediate reversal and declaring it would remain in permanent session to fight it.

“When the very union representing UNRWA employees is controlled by Hamas operatives,“ said Neuer, “it is unsurprising they object to removing their comrades. This is not the behavior of a neutral humanitarian agency, but of an organization captured by a terrorist group.”

While welcoming the dismissal of these 70 individuals, Neuer emphasized that “this is a drop in the bucket. UN Watch’s research indicates at least 1,500 additional Hamas-affiliated staff in Gaza alone, out of thousands more across the agency. Firing a handful while the structural rot remains does nothing to restore credibility.”

“UNRWA cannot be reformed. It must be shut down,” Neuer concluded. “Donor countries should immediately end all funding and work with an agency that indoctrinates children with hate in its schools, and functions as a political and military arm of Hamas. The United Nations has failed. Member states must now act decisively to dismantle this dangerous agency.”

About UN Watch

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This document responds to the latest version of UNRWA’s Facts Versus Claims, published in September 2025. UNRWA portrays itself as the victim of “misinformation and disinformation campaigns.” In fact, UNRWA is a primary source of both, deliberately misleading donors to continue funding a corrupt, terror-compromised agency. UNRWA’s claims are misleading, its oversight ineffective, and the UN investigations it cites are structurally biased. These systemic failures enable terror infiltration, undermine neutrality, and mislead donor states. 

UNRWA’s strategy is consistent: deflect responsibility wherever possible.

A central theme in UNRWA’s publication is the assertion that Israeli government allegations are “unsubstantiated.” UNRWA appears to argue that unless Israel provides its classified intelligence files on UNRWA employees’ terror affiliations directly to UNRWA, the allegations must be dismissed. This position is unreasonable and unserious. No state is expected to expose sources, methods, or classified intelligence that could compromise national security. Moreover, Israel did submit classified material to the UN for the OIOS investigation, and portions of it have since become public. Israel’s intelligence has repeatedly proven reliable. UNRWA’s insistence on receiving raw files directly is therefore nothing more than a pretext.

UNRWA also claims that it has no independent duty to investigate allegations of employee involvement with terror groups or neutrality violations in its facilities, suggesting it must rely entirely on Member States — primarily Israel — to supply evidence. This is false. Like any employer, UNRWA is fully responsible for what takes place in its facilities and for ensuring it does not employ terror operatives. It has both the authority and the obligation to perform rigorous background checks and ongoing screening of its staff. UNRWA’s duty to maintain neutrality gives it an obligation beyond that of ordinary employers. It must actively investigate and prevent any terror-support or terrorist activity among its staff or within its facilities.

Equally unreasonable is the notion that Israel should have initiated criminal proceedings against suspects located in Gaza — individuals over whom it has neither custody nor control — while UNRWA, their employer, does.

UNRWA further cites two UN investigations — both structured to exonerate the agency — as proof of its innocence.

The first, the OIOS investigation, was initiated on January 26, 2024 after Israel alleged that 12 UNRWA employees participated in the October 7 atrocities. Even before the investigation concluded, a March 4, 2024 memo circulated by UNRWA-aligned lobbyists under Francesca Albanese’s Global Network on the Question of Palestine instructed advocates to pre-emptively declare that the OIOS report “will not substantiate Israeli claims.” The memo emphasized that the messaging should not come directly from UNRWA to preserve the appearance of independence.

OIOS published its findings on August 5, 2024. Predictably, it stated that it had not received hard evidence. Yet the report admitted that the evidence “could indicate” that nine staff members “may have been involved in the 7 October attacks.” The investigation was opaque: employees were unnamed, allegations unspecified, and evidence undisclosed. It dismissed Israeli intelligence even though parts of it are now public. Israel received only a heavily redacted version — so redacted that the credibility of OIOS’s conclusions cannot be meaningfully assessed. The UN likewise refused to supply the U.S. Congress with an unredacted version. This severe lack of transparency undermines the legitimacy of the entire process.

UNRWA also cites the Colonna Review, claiming it “confirmed” that the agency has adequate neutrality mechanisms, that it has “systems in place” to handle allegations, and that between 2022 and 2024 it reviewed all external complaints and launched investigations when evidence was present. Policies alone are meaningless if not enforced. UNRWA’s admission that it reviewed only external allegations — without internal investigations despite systemic problems — reveals a profound lack of commitment to neutrality.

Moreover, the Colonna Review was compromised from the start. Former UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness, speaking on behalf of UNRWA, told an outlet sympathetic to the UN that he hoped the report would provide donors with “cover” to resume funding. UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric acknowledged that Secretary-General Guterres intended the review to “reassure” donors who had doubts, and Colonna herself described the mission as one designed to restore donor “confidence.” These statements make clear the review’s purpose was political, designed to reassure donors, not to investigate.

A detailed analysis by UN Watch further shows that Catherine Colonna and the three research institutions involved in the review were not impartial. They had either conflicts of interest or a documented history of positions sympathetic to UNRWA and/or hostile to Israel.

The following sections examine UNRWA’s claims one by one, using public evidence and UNRWA’s own admissions to demonstrate that its narrative cannot withstand scrutiny.

UNRWA’s Claim 1: Allegations are not Evidence: UNRWA has not received evidence that 1,400 UNRWA employees have links to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad

Analysis: In April 2025, the Israeli government revealed that more than 1,400 UNRWA Gaza employees — approximately 12% of its workforce — were members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The finding was based on verified Israeli intelligence obtained during military operations in Gaza, some of which was declassified and made publicly available online. The released documents included Hamas’s own personnel records: internal recruitment databases, military training rosters, and administrative files. These were cross-referenced with UNRWA’s official staff lists that the agency had previously provided to Israel.

UNRWA has completely dismissed this intelligence, asserting that it has not received from Israel or any other UN Member State any “information” or “evidence” supporting the allegation. But whether Israel handed the evidence directly to UNRWA or released it publicly is irrelevant. The evidence exists in the public record, and UNRWA has a duty to act upon it.

UNRWA further argues that because it conducts “detailed reference checks” on its staff and has been sharing employee names and employee numbers with Israel for two decades, it bears no responsibility for failing to detect staff with terror-group affiliations. However, these “reference checks” rely on the UN’s “Consolidated Sanctions List,” which does not include Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Colonna Report acknowledged that “these measures do not allow sufficient verifications.” Moreover, although UNRWA has long shared employee names with Israel, it only provided the list in a fully digital format with ID numbers (as opposed to UNRWA employee numbers) in March 2024 — allowing Israel, for the first time, to cross-check its data against other intelligence databases. 

Despite UNRWA’s attempts to deflect the charge that at least 12% of its Gaza staff belong to Hamas and PIJ, its own leadership has previously acknowledged that Hamas members are on its payroll — and has stated openly that it “does not see that as a crime.”

UNRWA’s Claim 2: There is no evidence to support the claim that UNRWA has been “totally infiltrated” by Hamas

Analysis: UNRWA seeks to discredit UN Watch’s research by claiming that over the past two years “less than one percent” of the agency’s 30,000 employees were found to have violated neutrality — and that most of those cases involved nothing more than “inappropriate” social media posts. This characterization is misleading and ignores the core issue. The concern is not a handful of social media violations — it is the systemic penetration of UNRWA by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Publicly available evidence compiled by UN Watch demonstrates that Hamas’s infiltration of UNRWA is deep, longstanding, and institutional. In January 2025, UN Watch released The Unholy Alliance: UNRWA, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, documenting how senior UNRWA officials — both local and international — regularly meet with Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders, publicly praise one another for “cooperation,” and describe each other as “partners.” Terror groups are able to exert influence over UNRWA operations, including by pressuring the agency to reverse or modify decisions.

In September 2025, UN Watch published Schools in the Grip of Terror: How UNRWA Allowed Hamas Chiefs to Control its Education System, showing that Hamas leadership had gained control of UNRWA’s education system in both Gaza and Lebanon through direct leadership roles and domination of UNRWA staff unions. The report highlighted two emblematic cases:

• Suhail Al-Hindi — Simultaneously a Hamas politburo member, an UNRWA school principal, and head of the UNRWA Gaza Staff Union for years. He has since emerged as a senior Hamas figure involved in ceasefire negotiations and regularly appears alongside Hamas leadership abroad.
• Fateh Sharif — A Hamas leader in Lebanon who served as an UNRWA school principal and head of the UNRWA Lebanon Teachers’ Union for years. After he was killed in an Israeli strike on September 30, 2024, Hamas publicly mourned him as its commander in Lebanon.

The report further showed that the successors to both men in UNRWA’s unions were also Hamas operatives who continued promoting Hamas’s agenda within UNRWA structures.

Even UNRWA’s own commissioned review — the Colonna Report — acknowledged the problem. It explicitly found that UNRWA’s staff unions are “politicized” and that political factions have long used these unions to pressure agency leadership and influence service delivery and project implementation. It concluded that the politicization of staff unions is “one of the most sensitive neutrality issues” facing UNRWA and requires urgent attention. Moreover, UNRWA’s own  August 2025 assessment confirmed that, more than a year on, every recommendation concerning politicized unions remained unimplemented. 

Against this backdrop, UNRWA’s insistence that the issue is limited to “less than one percent” of staff posting improper material on social media is indefensible. This framing appears aimed more at discrediting UN Watch than at addressing the underlying problem. UN Watch has consistently explained that its social media findings represent only a fraction of neutrality breaches, due to limited access to employee rosters and privacy settings on Facebook. UNRWA itself has even coached staff on how to hide their social media profiles to avoid being caught violating neutrality. A genuine, comprehensive investigation into online and offline activities would almost certainly uncover a far higher rate of violations.

UNRWA’s refusal to engage with the evidence — and its choice to minimize it — underscores that the agency is not serious about confronting the scale of Hamas infiltration within its ranks.

UNRWA’s Claim 3: UNRWA’s engagement with Hamas takes places solely at the “operational level” with the “exclusive purpose” of “delivering humanitarian aid and services”

Analysis: UNRWA insists that its dealings with Hamas — euphemistically referred to as “the de facto authorities” — are purely “operational” and limited to facilitating humanitarian aid. It cites coordination with both Israel and Hamas during the conflict since October 7, 2023, and points to occasional clashes with Hamas since 2007 as evidence that its interactions are narrow and transactional. Yet even on its own terms, the mere fact that UNRWA maintains any coordination with Hamas — a terrorist organization that governs Gaza through coercion and violence — is profoundly problematic and undermines its claims of neutrality.

This narrative is false. UNRWA’s response disregards the agency’s longstanding and extensive ties to Hamas — ties that go far beyond operational coordination during the October 7th conflict. UN Watch’s The Unholy Alliance: UNRWA, Hamas, Islamic Jihad shows that UNRWA’s dealings with Hamas go far beyond the “operational level,” shaping major areas such as education policy, employee hiring, and financial assistance. 

The evidence of deeper collaboration is overwhelming. A sophisticated Hamas intelligence data center was discovered beneath UNRWA’s Gaza headquarters, with cables directly connected to UNRWA’s electrical system — proof that UNRWA infrastructure supported Hamas operations for years. According to IDF Col. Elad Shushan, weapons were found in every UNRWA site inspected. The IDF has produced visual evidence of Hamas launching attacks from inside or adjacent to UNRWA schools, storing weapons in those schools, and constructing terror tunnels beneath UNRWA facilities. All of this is a matter of public record.

While UNRWA’s international staff may occasionally clash with Hamas, these confrontations frequently end with UNRWA capitulating to Hamas demands — reinstating teachers suspended for neutrality violations, allowing Hamas influence over hiring decisions, and blocking curriculum reforms on Holocaust education and gender equality.

UNRWA’s Claim 4: UNRWA had not received “specific allegations” of aid diversion by Hamas or other armed groups

Analysis: UNRWA’s central defense is that Israeli claims of Hamas aid diversion “have not yet been substantiated let alone proven.” To support this, UNRWA cites a February 2024 statement by U.S. Special Envoy David Satterfield that Israeli officials had not raised these allegations in confidential briefings. UNRWA then argues that the charges are merely a “pretext” to justify sidelining the agency in favor of the Israeli-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

But the “no evidence” claim is categorically false. In March 2025, former hostage Eli Sharabi provided first-hand testimony before the UN Security Council describing Hamas’s systematic theft of humanitarian aid. In April 2025, during Israel’s freeze on new aid into Gaza, the Wall Street Journal detailed how Hamas had long profited from humanitarian aid — using the revenue to pay its fighters — and how the freeze was choking off this crucial funding stream. The IDF has also released extensive digital evidence, including audio and video recordings of Hamas operatives stealing aid, all of which has been widely reported in the media.

Further, during the 4.5 months in which the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation delivered nearly 200 million meals to needy Gazans without diversion, the UN itself acknowledged that close to 90% of its own aid was being “intercepted,” some of it “forcefully by armed actors.” With respect to UNRWA specifically, an UNRWA employee tweeted early in the war that Hamas had stolen UNRWA fuel — a tweet UNRWA immediately deleted and denied, even though other sources confirmed the theft. There is also abundant evidence of UNRWA aid appearing in Hamas custody: UNRWA aid bags found in Yahya Sinwar’s hideout and UNRWA bags used to conceal weapons in multiple sites across Gaza.

UNRWA also claims to have “a robust system of oversight and checks.” In reality, this system merely screens vendors and subcontractors against the UN Security Council Sanctions List — which, as noted, does not include Hamas — and verifies beneficiaries against UNRWA’s own registry. None of these checks prevent Hamas or other armed groups from simply stealing the aid once it enters Gaza.

UNRWA’s Claim 5: UNRWA systematically condemns violations of UN premises

Analysis: Although Hamas is the party in Gaza that stores weapons in, fires from, and digs tunnels beneath UNRWA facilities, UNRWA begins its defense by insisting that “both sides” have “violated the neutrality of UNRWA sites.” This framing alone obscures the reality of who is responsible for the overwhelming majority of violations.

UNRWA’s response repeatedly deflects responsibility for Hamas’s routine abuses of its premises, despite being the custodian of those facilities and having a duty to know what occurs on its grounds. Outrageously, UNRWA declares that it “is not responsible for anything that may or may not lie under its premises,” even though Gaza’s vast subterranean terror-tunnel network runs directly beneath its schools, clinics, and headquarters. The sophisticated Hamas data center discovered directly under UNRWA’s Gaza City HQ had electrical cables running straight into the UNRWA offices themselves — incontrovertible evidence that UNRWA knew, or should have known, what was happening below.

Moreover, UNRWA employs 13,000 staff in Gaza. Even assuming none of them were Hamas members or related to Hamas operatives, they lived and worked amid massive tunneling activity. Building more than 350 miles of tunnels with 5,700 access shafts required heavy machinery, thousands of workers, and constant noise. It is simply not credible that UNRWA staff were unaware. Indeed, in November 2021, UNRWA’s former Gaza Director Matthias Schmale acknowledged the obvious: “Many people told me through my four years, there’s tunnels everywhere and it’s a safe assumption.”

UNRWA further defends itself by claiming it “systematically condemned” such violations and notified the “de facto authorities” — meaning Hamas itself — whenever it discovered weapons or tunnels under its premises. But when the violations are recurring, widespread, and perpetrated by the very authority you are “notifying,” public condemnations are meaningless. UNRWA has an affirmative duty to prevent these abuses, not merely to report them to the perpetrators.

UNRWA’s so-called “regular neutrality assessments” are similarly hollow. They amount to:

1. Checking that facilities are not being “misused,” without explaining how;
2. Ensuring UN buildings are clearly marked;
3. Posting signs declaring the premises weapons-free; and
4. Removing political graffiti.

According to the Colonna Report, these inspections were intended to occur quarterly, yet they “did not always occur on schedule” and were chronically understaffed. The problems they typically identified — missing UN signboards, no-weapons signs, or UN flags — only confirm how superficial these assessments were. They failed to detect any Hamas activity in or around UNRWA facilities, despite extensive evidence that such activity was widespread. The report concluded that quarterly inspections are wholly inadequate to “ensure the neutrality of the premises,” and that “daily monitoring of the installations needs to be more robust.”

UNRWA’s Claim 6: UNRWA follows “best practices” for refugee education by using host government textbooks

Analysis: UNRWA defends its practice of using host-country textbooks and insists it has “no tolerance for hate speech and inciting discrimination or violence.” It asserts that its teachers are trained to address problematic material and that UNRWA supplements the curriculum with “UN positions” on the conflict. It also points to its human-rights and tolerance programs and boasts that its students achieve “among the best” academic outcomes in the region at minimal cost.

None of this addresses the core problem. High test scores do not excuse the poisonous content to which students are exposed. Since 2019, the European Parliament has passed annual resolutions condemning the Palestinian Authority for including incitement and hatred in its textbooks. Even the Georg Eckhart Study cited by UNRWA — which controversially claimed PA textbooks met UNESCO standards — acknowledged that these books contain antisemitism, glorify violence, and deny Israel’s existence. UNRWA conveniently omits the substantial criticism the study received for drawing conclusions that contradicted its own evidence. Yet these very textbooks are what UNRWA distributes in the West Bank and Gaza, ensuring that Palestinian children absorb the full range of hateful and violent messaging they contain.

UNRWA claims it trains teachers to “address” problematic content, but it does not claim — nor is there evidence — that teachers are instructed to stop teaching that content. UNRWA says educators “are required to follow this approach” and are “held accountable,” but provides no explanation of what accountability means in practice. Even the Colonna Report, which was sympathetic to UNRWA, conceded that UNRWA teaching materials contain serious problems: “the presence of even a small fraction of problematic content in textbooks, supplemental material and teaching content remains a serious issue.”

UN Watch’s Joint report with IMPACT-se (March 2023) documented actual UNRWA classroom instruction in which students were taught to glorify terrorists like Dalal Mughrabi as national “heroes.” The report also revealed numerous UNRWA lessons urging students to engage in violence to “liberate Palestine,” demonizing Israel and Israelis, teaching that sovereign Israeli territory rightfully belongs to Palestinians, and promoting antisemitic narratives. This directly contradicts UNRWA’s assertion that it teaches only UN-approved positions on the conflict.

If UNRWA students receive education on “human rights” and “conflict resolution,” it clearly excludes the Israel–Palestinian conflict — the very area where such instruction is most needed.

UNRWA’s Claim 7: A 2019 U.S. Government Accountability Office report reaffirmed UNRWA’s “unwavering commitment to UN Values” 

Analysis: UNRWA cites the June 2019 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, which found that although UNRWA had developed supplementary materials to counter problematic content, it had not trained teachers or distributed those materials — in part due to “staff refusal to attend trainings.” UN Watch’s 2023 report further demonstrated that, in practice, UNRWA teachers continued to teach the very problematic content these materials were meant to correct. In addition, our Schools in the Grip of Terror report further shows that Hamas-controlled unions frequently protested UNRWA neutrality measures — including neutrality trainings and curriculum changes such as adding Holocaust education — making these policies difficult or even impossible to implement.

UNRWA also points to its February 2019 statement responding to GAO’s criticism of its “teacher-centered approach.” But this response addresses policy on paper, not what is actually happening in UNRWA classrooms. Critically, UNRWA has never answered GAO’s finding that its own teachers refused to participate in required trainings.

UNRWA Claim 8: UNRWA’s Mandate is not to resolve the Palestine refugee issue

Analysis: UNRWA rejects the charge that it perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem by maintaining millions of Palestinians as permanent refugees and telling them that their true home lies inside Israel. The agency insists that it is not mandated to resolve refugee status, only to provide “direct relief and works programmes.”

In reality, this limitation is precisely what transforms UNRWA from a humanitarian organization into a political one. Palestinians view the agency’s continued existence as their “right” until they “return to Palestine,” and UNRWA reinforces this perception. UNRWA’s own website states that the agency was established “to provide assistance pending the implementation” of UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which UNRWA claims “enshrin[es]” the right of return. That “right of return” refers to the demand that several million Palestinians — descendants of the 1948 refugees who have been living for generations in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria — be allowed to “return” en masse to what is now Israel, a goal that would effectively eliminate Israel as a Jewish state. By tying its mission directly to Resolution 194 while refusing alternatives such as resettlement or integration, UNRWA signals that “return” — the same ideological demand at the core of Hamas’s platform — is the only outcome it recognizes.

UNRWA officials consistently frame their mission in these political terms. When Israel’s Knesset voted in October 2024 to ban UNRWA, Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini denounced the move as an attack on Palestinians’ “refugee status” and “right of return.” His predecessor, Pierre Krähenbühl, declared that UNRWA is “not only a service provider” but “the witness of the injustice” of 1948 — a grievance he promised to “defend.” Likewise, UNRWA’s West Bank Director, Adam Bouloukos, admitted that the agency is “never able to de-link service provision from the right of return.” These statements underscore that UNRWA’s leadership views the agency not simply as a humanitarian actor but as the guardian of a political demand that ensures the conflict endures.

The fact that the General Assembly continues to renew UNRWA’s mandate — fully aware that the agency promotes a political narrative that obstructs peace and entrenches the conflict — does not absolve UNRWA or its leadership. Rather, it highlights how deeply the agency’s operations now align with, and ultimately advance, the agenda of terrorist organizations that depend on perpetuating the refugee issue indefinitely.

Against this backdrop, UNRWA’s claim that it follows UNHCR’s approach to refugee status is blatantly false. UNRWA asserts that it treats refugee descendants just as UNHCR does. In reality, UNHCR may allow refugee status to extend to children only in specific, protracted situations, and never automatically as it is under UNRWA. More importantly, under UNHCR norms, individuals who acquire new citizenship — such as most of the 2.4 million Palestinians in Jordan — cease to be refugees. And people who never left their territory and are fully settled there — including over 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza — are not considered refugees under any other definition. UNRWA’s unique, expansive definition is what enables the perpetual growth of the “refugee” population for political purposes.

UNRWA Claim 9: UNRWA is irreplaceable because it provides “critical public services” through its 30,000 employees, most of whom are local Palestinians

Analysis: UNRWA argues that its model of employing local Palestinians — at salaries 40–70% lower than other locally recruited UN staff — makes it the most cost-efficient UN agency for delivering “public-like services,” such as education and health care.

But this claim sidesteps the more fundamental issue: why is the UN providing government services to Palestinians in the first place, something it does for no other refugee population? If the Palestinian authorities were responsible for these sectors, as any government would be, they could deliver them at the same cost or less. UNRWA’s lower-cost model does not make it indispensable; it merely means its staff could be absorbed into local government payrolls. Worse, by allowing the UN to shoulder basic state functions, UNRWA effectively relieves local authorities of responsibility. In Gaza, this enables Hamas to divert resources away from education and healthcare and toward tunnels, weapons, and other terrorist infrastructure.

Humanitarian relief — the one area where international intervention is appropriate — can easily be handled by other UN agencies such as WHO, WFP, UNHCR, and UNICEF, all of which routinely perform these roles in crises around the world. Although UNRWA has a large presence in Gaza, most of its staff are teachers who are not involved in humanitarian operations, whereas the specialized agencies possess broader experience and global infrastructure for scaling emergency aid.

Indeed, when asked in February 2024 whether agencies like WHO could expand their operations to replace UNRWA’s functions, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said he had “no doubt” they could do so, “whatever needs to be done.” Yet the UN Secretary-General has effectively shut down such contingency planning, warning other UN agencies not to take actions that could “erode” UNRWA. 

UNRWA’s Claim 10: UNHCR cannot replace UNRWA because the two entities have “very distinct functions”

Analysis: UNRWA points to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which established UNHCR’s mandate, noting that it “does not apply to those refugees who benefit from the protection or assistance of a United Nations agency other than UNHCR, such as refugees from Palestine who fall under the auspices of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).”

But this distinction exists only because UNRWA exists. If Palestinians were to stop receiving UNRWA services, UNHCR’s mandate would automatically extend to them. For more than 70 years, the mere existence of UNRWA has blocked Palestinians from accessing UNHCR’s protections, producing the unusual situation in which Palestinians fleeing abuses by their own governments — whether Hamas in Gaza or the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — are ineligible for UNHCR status.

While UNRWA’s mandate includes government-like services that UNHCR does not provide, this does not justify its role. These public services should be the responsibility of the host governments, not of UNRWA or any UN agency.

UNRWA’s Claim 11: It’s better for donors to help Palestinians through UNRWA then through other governments in the region

Analysis: UNRWA reiterates that it runs “essential public services” at costs comparable to “local civil services where they work.”

But this does not answer the fundamental question: why should donors channel aid to Palestinians through UNRWA rather than through local authorities or host governments? Relying on UNRWA bypasses these governments, relieving them of responsibility for essential services and perpetuating dependency. In Gaza, for example, this allows Hamas to divert resources away from education and healthcare toward tunnels, weapons, and other terrorist infrastructure. Donors’ assumption that UNRWA is inherently the best vehicle for aid ignores these consequences and entrenches a politically charged system rather than addressing Palestinians’ needs through legitimate, accountable governance.

UNRWA’s Claim 12: UNRWA launches investigations into “credible allegations” showing that it does take reports against it seriously

Analysis: UNRWA asserts that it has “no tolerance for hate speech, discrimination, or incitement to violence” and regularly reviews “all allegations it receives on breaching UN values and humanitarian principles,” investigating “credible allegations” and imposing disciplinary measures when violations are confirmed.

But this reactive approach is insufficient. If UNRWA were genuinely committed to neutrality, it would proactively investigate its staff rather than waiting for external complaints. It would also engage constructively with organizations like UN Watch instead of dismissing or disparaging critical reporting. UNRWA’s track record undermines its claim: for example, it has employed known Hamas leaders, including Suhail Al-Hindi and Fateh Sharif, as senior educators, demonstrating a repeated tolerance for individuals directly affiliated with terrorist activity.

Claim 13: The list of 100 names provided by the Israeli government to UNRWA in July 2024 is unsubstantiated and is being used to undermine UNRWA’s work

Analysis: In July 2024, the Israeli government provided UNRWA with a list of 100 Hamas operatives employed by the agency, including full names, government ID numbers, and Hamas military ID numbers. UNRWA dismissed the list as “unsubstantiated” and part of a “wider disinformation campaign against UNRWA,” despite the clear and verifiable nature of the information.

UNRWA now attempts to discredit the list by noting it had been submitting employee rosters to Israel for “two decades” without reaction. Yet prior to March 2024, lists were not digitized and lacked full names and ID numbers, making cross-checking impossible. By contrast, Israel’s July 2024 list was compiled using comprehensive intelligence gathered during operations in Gaza after October 7, 2023 — intelligence UNRWA chose to ignore.

UNRWA’s refusal to act on credible intelligence directly undermines the agency’s claims of neutrality and its credibility.

UNRWA’s Claim 14: The accusation that an UNRWA social worker kidnapped an Israeli into Gaza on October 7th is merely an “allegation” not “evidence”

Analysis: UNRWA categorically denies that any of its employees took part in the October 7th atrocities, asserting that “there has never been evidence provided to substantiate allegations of such horrific actions by anyone from UNRWA.” Yet its own statement inexplicably references the case of UNRWA social worker Faisal Na’ami, who was captured on film abducting Israeli Nova festival attendee Yonatan Samerano from Kibbutz Be’eri and transporting him into Gaza. The IDF recovered Samerano’s body in Gaza on June 22, 2025.

On August 5, 2025, the UN announced it had completed its investigation into 19 UNRWA employees accused by Israel of participating in the attacks. It dismissed nine of them, stating that “the evidence obtained by OIOS indicated that the UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the 7 October attacks.” The hedging — “may have been involved” — implies that the findings were not definitive. Compounding this ambiguity, the investigation was not transparent: it did not name the employees, specify the allegations, or disclose the evidence examined.

Israel maintains that it submitted substantial evidence of staff involvement to OIOS. Yet the version of the OIOS report provided to Israel was so extensively redacted that it is impossible to assess the credibility of its conclusions. Israel has since released some of its evidence publicly. In Na’ami’s case, this includes CCTV footage, Hamas membership records, vehicle registration data confirming that the car used in the abduction was registered in his name, and corroborating phone data.

Separately, USAID’s Office of Inspector General independently identified evidence connecting three current or former UNRWA employees to the October 7th attacks and found that 14 others were members of Hamas. Because of OIOS’s sweeping redactions, USAID OIG could not determine whether these individuals were among those investigated or dismissed. The UN has since refused to provide the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform with any additional information, despite repeated formal requests.

Far from supporting UNRWA’s insistence that “no evidence” exists, the record shows that credible evidence was provided — but the UN chose not to meaningfully engage with it, opting instead to shield UNRWA through opaque procedures and heavily redacted findings that functioned less as an investigation than as institutional self-exoneration.

UNRWA’s Claim 15: No other agency can provide basic services at scale in Gaza

Analysis: UNRWA asserts that it is the only international agency capable of delivering “basic services” such as education to Gaza’s 660,000 children, as it did before the war. But this argument ignores a fundamental point: education for Palestinian children should be the responsibility of the Palestinian government — just as education is provided by national authorities everywhere else in the world. Since virtually all UNRWA teachers are local hires, they can be transferred to the Palestinian Authority’s payroll without disruption, making UNRWA’s claim of irreplaceability highly misleading.

UNRWA further warns that prolonged school closures increase the risk of exploitation, including “recruitment by armed groups.” Yet extensive research by UN Watch demonstrates that UNRWA’s own educational system has long functioned as an incubator for Hamas, employing Hamas members in senior educational positions, promoting the “right of return” as an ideological imperative, and glorifying martyrdom and jihad as pathways to “liberating Palestine.”

Far from serving as a barrier against radicalization, UNRWA’s school system has repeatedly amplified the very extremist narratives it claims to guard against.

UNRWA’s Claim 16: UNRWA calls for independent investigation into claims that hostages were held in UNRWA facilities

Analysis: UNRWA refuses to credit the firsthand testimony of returned Israeli hostages Emily Damari and Ditza Heiman, who stated that they were held in UNRWA facilities and by UNRWA personnel. Rather than acknowledge or investigate these accounts, UNRWA deflects responsibility by claiming it cannot verify information “from media and open source reports only,” urging those with evidence to “pass it on formally to UNRWA,” and calling for an independent investigation. This response reflects a familiar pattern: when confronted with direct testimony or concrete allegations implicating its staff, UNRWA routinely retreats into procedural evasions instead of undertaking substantive inquiry.

UNRWA’s position is also implausible on its face. The agency controls the facilities, employs the personnel, and maintains the operational records relevant to the hostages’ testimony. Moreover, UNRWA has repeatedly boasted that it operates all the shelters in Gaza. If it wished to verify these accounts, UNRWA could launch internal reviews, interview staff responsible for the sites in question and examine operational data. Yet it has chosen not to take even these minimal investigative steps. Its demand for an “independent investigation” functions primarily as a delay tactic — a way to avoid immediate accountability while claiming it cannot comment pending some future process. Based on past experience, such “independent” inquiries are neither transparent nor impartial — producing predetermined findings that shield the organization rather than expose wrongdoing.

Far from demonstrating transparency, UNRWA’s refusal to engage with evidence available from within its own system underscores a deeper problem: the agency is unwilling — not unable — to determine whether its personnel were complicit in holding Israeli hostages.

Claim 17: UNRWA is not refusing to distribute aid, but is blocked by Israel from bringing in aid to Gaza

Analysis: UNRWA claims that it is unable to deliver aid in Gaza because Israel is blocking access. In reality, the evidence shows the opposite: Israel actively facilitated the entry of aid, while UNRWA repeatedly misrepresented both the situation and its own capacity to distribute assistance.

Between October 7, 2023, and the ceasefire on October 10, 2025, the IDF’s COGAT unit enabled the entry of over two million tons of aid into Gaza, roughly 80% of it food. Overall, UN agencies — including UNRWA — accounted for only 30-33% of aid deliveries, even after the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operations on May 19, 2025. COGAT consistently affirmed there were no limits on aid into Gaza, a fact acknowledged by the UN. 

Despite these facts, UNRWA’s public statements painted a very different picture. UNRWA officials — including Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini — repeatedly claimed that UNRWA had 6,000 trucks of aid waiting to enter Gaza, falsely implying that Israel was obstructing aid. This was demonstrably false: UN admissions to COGAT in private meetings confirmed that the UN lacked the capacity to process more than 120 trucks per day, and on July 15, 2025, COGAT posted a photo showing thousands of pallets of aid sitting at the crossing, waiting for collection. By mid-August, UN agencies had increased their aid pickups more than tenfold, yet UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma continued to claim that Israeli restrictions were preventing the agency from delivering aid as UNRWA claimed it had done during the January 2025 ceasefire.

COGAT repeatedly refuted UNRWA’s statements, clarifying that none of the 25,200 trucks delivered during the January ceasefire came from UNRWA and condemning the 6,000-truck claim as a “blatant falsehood.” The record demonstrates a consistent pattern: Israel facilitated aid at scale, while UNRWA exaggerated and misrepresented its own operational limitations to shift blame.

While Israeli Knesset legislation passed in October 2024 restricted UNRWA’s contact with Israeli authorities, it did not prohibit UNRWA from bringing in or distributing aid. As COGAT indicated, any UNRWA aid could still reach Gaza if transported by other UN agencies. UNRWA’s complaints therefore ring hollow, especially considering that other UN agencies successfully brought in and distributed aid. Rather than deflecting responsibility onto Israel, UNRWA should have taken on practical steps to ensure aid reached those in need.

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Hillel Neuer, center, presenting UN Watch’s latest report to Germany’s Bundestag, Sept. 17, 2025

UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer traveled to Berlin last month to release the organization’s 200-page report, Schools in the Grip of Terror, uncovering how for decades Hamas terror chiefs controlled UNRWA’s education system. Germany is the top funder of UNRWA, at some $200 million per year.

At the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, Neuer presented new evidence that Hamas terror chiefs simultaneously served as UNRWA school principals, union leaders, and senior educators — while publicly glorifying terrorism, recruiting children into militant activity, and blocking Holocaust education.

German lawmakers were briefed on how the UN’s top officials were aware of Hamas’s control over its schools yet failed to act.

Neuer’s visit and the UN Watch revelations were reported by Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Berliner Morgenpost, Juedische Rundschau, Hamburger Abendblatt, Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Thueringer Allgemeine, Braunschweiger Zeiting, ⁠Westfalische Rundschau, Harz Kurier, OstThuringer Zeitung, and Neue Ruhr Zeitung.

Read UN Watch’s full report exposing UNRWA here.

UN Watch in Neue Zürcher Zeitung : “UNRWA’s entire local management is involved with Hamas”

On the eve of his appearance before the German Parliament, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung interviewed Hillel Neuer on UN Watch’s latest report exposing UNRWA. Following are highlights.

NZZ: Mr. Neuer, your report is titled “Schools in the Grip of Terror.” Reading it, one encounters familiar accusations: that UNRWA employs staunch Hamas supporters who indoctrinate students with hatred of Jews. What is new about your research?

Hillel Neuer: Our report documents in detail that the entire local management of UNRWA is involved with Hamas – not just a few ordinary employees. Take Lebanon, for example: there, Fateh al-Sharif, the head of Hamas in Lebanon, was in charge of UNRWA’s educational infrastructure. The situation is not much different in the Gaza Strip. Although Hamas official Suhail al-Hindi left UNRWA in 2017, he has continued to exert influence on the organization ever since.

NZZ: You are considered one of the harshest critics of UNRWA in the Western world. What is going wrong at the UN relief agency?

Hillel Neuer: The very structure of UNRWA is questionable. Swiss UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini leaves operational business almost exclusively to the approximately 30,000 local employees. However, according to the Wall Street Journal, 10 percent of them in Gaza alone have close ties to the terrorist organizations Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad…

There is no other conflict in the world in which refugee status has been passed down to the fourth generation. Astonishing, isn’t it? For the approximately 900,000 Jews who had to flee to Israel from many countries in the Arab world after 1948, there was and is no such separate relief agency. They integrated into their new homeland.

Instead of contributing to the solution of the Palestinian refugee problem, UNRWA perpetuates it for all eternity. It also contributes to the political radicalization of the people.

UNRWA teachers tell schoolchildren that one day they will be able to “return” to Israel by taking the land from the Israelis. The UNRWA leadership stood by and watched. Then, on October 7, 2023, Hamas cruelly fulfilled this promise.

Hillel Neuer in Berliner Morgenpost: “UNRWA is a nihilistic death cult”

The briefing at the German Bundestag and UN Watch’s new report were also covered in the Berliner Morgenpost. The article was syndicated across numerous other newspapers in Germany.

Berliner Morgenpost
October 15, 2025
By Madeleine Janssen, Head of Foreign Desk

“Germany is currently the largest contributor to UNRWA with $200 million a year,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of the Geneva-based UN Watch.

At a recent briefing in Berlin, the Canadian lawyer emphasized: “UNRWA teachers are terrorist leaders.” What once began as an altruistic project to educate children in Gaza has since become “completely corrupt.” As evidence, Neuer presented research on several high-ranking UNRWA teachers.

One of them: Suhail al-Hindi. UN Watch paints a picture of an established terrorist – photos show al-Hindi with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. He is also said to have maintained close ties with the long-time leader of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh.

The NGO investigation further suggests that he was part of the Hamas delegation in Qatar. “When he was finally suspended by the United Nations because of his connections,” says lawyer Neuer, “the UNRWA schools closed in protest – for three months!”

Al-Hindi was subsequently allowed to continue working. According to Neuer, UNRWA claimed to have been unaware of the man’s involvement with Hamas.

It would have been interesting to know what former UNRWA representatives had to say about the allegations. German UN diplomat and former UNRWA chief Matthias Schmale did not respond to a request for comment from this newsroom.

According to legal scholar Hillel Neuer, there is a reason why the Palestinian population clings so vehemently to UNRWA: “While any other aid organization can distribute food and medicine, only UNRWA promises Palestinians a “right of return.”

“UNRWA is perpetuating the conflict,” said Hillel Neuer. He added that they are allowing the organization to “poison the Palestinians with a nihilistic death cult.”

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