UN Watch was quoted by media outlets around the world in September 2026 on various topics, including Neta Heiman Mina’s testimony at the United Nations, our recently published Report Card on UNRWA Reform and Francesca Albanese’s historically inaccurate claims.
Featured in CBS News, “Elie Wiesel’s son on Trump’s U.N. speech,” September 22, 2026:
“The U.N. is fundamentally broken. UN Watch published a report showing 490 employees of UNRWA linked directly to terror. Later, UNRWA ended up firing some 70 of them.”
— Human rights activist @ElishaWiesel, son of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, on @CBSNews https://t.co/LYNJRZ8epI— UN Watch (@UNWatch) September 23, 2026
Appeared in The Fox News Rundown, “Evening Edition: President Trump Won’t Rule Out More Strikes on Iran,” September 28, 2026:
Key quote:
The Human Rights Council in Geneva, sadly, is completely subverted. The chair of the UN human rights experts is a gentleman named George Katrougalos. The UN disclosure form says that China gave his mandate $100,000. What decent, properly functioning, self-respecting human rights expert would take $100,000 from the Chinese Communist regime? He didn’t mention a word about a million Uyghurs put in camps. Didn’t mention a word about 78 year old newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai being thrown in the dungeon in Hong Kong. Didn’t mention a word about Taiwan being threatened by China. Didn’t mention a word about 6000 Tibetan temples being destroyed by China.”
Appeared in HonestReporting, “Apartheid, Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity: Hillel Neuer on Who Wrote the Charges Against Israel,” September 16, 2026:
Key quote:
This was supposed to be the World Conference Against Racism, held in the new post-apartheid South Africa at the beginning of the 21st century, 2001. And yet, what happened really was a travesty. A conference that was supposed to be against racism became a conference that promoted racism. At the governmental conference, Israel was the only country singled out as an alleged perpetrator of racism by listing the Palestinians as the only group under the rubric of victims of racism. The NGO forum, which happened in parallel, accused Israel of words that are familiar today but were not then, which was genocide, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. So, much of the venom and the hate that we’re seeing today can be attributed back to what we saw at an international so-called anti-racism, so-called human rights conference 25 years ago.
Appeared in Newsmax, “In the Middle East, the UN is completely irrelevant,” September 23, 2026:
Key quote:
The United Nations is facing a very serious test. There’s a race now to succeed the Secretary-General, but I’d say that there’s a race to be relevant. Let’s keep in mind that we have crises around the world. In Sudan, there are some 14 million people displaced. Hundreds of thousands have been killed, wounded. The UN is doing nothing to solve that problem. The few people, on the initial straw polls, who’ve been leading are not substantial personalities who are well known. And keep in mind, to win the spot, you have to be approved not only by the U.S. but by Russia and China. So to imagine that you’ll have someone with a spine is a very hard expectation, given the regimes they have to appease.”
Appeared in ILTV, “Guterres’ Double Standard on Gaza Exposed,” September 23, 2026:
Key quote:
He says that what’s happening in Gaza is the worst situation he’s ever seen, the scale unprecedented from anything he’s witnessed. Well, in the time that he’s been Secretary-General, perhaps he didn’t notice, but hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Sudan, in Syria, in Ukraine, in Yemen, in Ethiopia, and the list goes on. So, just factually, by any measure, if you look at Hamas’s maximalist figures, the other situations that I mentioned are far greater. The other piece which is significant is that Hamas invaded Israel. Hamas launched a massacre on October 7, killing 1,200 people in one day—the equivalent of 12 9/11 attacks proportionally, if you compare Israel’s population to America.
Appeared in Boundless Insights, “The United Nations – with Hillel Neuer,” September 16, 2026:
Key quote:
You also get European countries [voting against Israel]. So you ask, why is this happening? Let’s look at the rational reasons. Number one: vote trading. So if you’re China, which actually has a million Uyghurs locked up in camps, you don’t want the Muslim countries criticizing you, so you throw them a bone. Israel has one vote; the Islamic group, 56. Second is oil. Still, large amounts of the world’s oil reserves are held by countries like the Arab world; Qatar with gas. Very significant third, I would say, is investment. There are countries that want billions of dollars of Qatari investments, and I’ve seen it in secret cables that were leaked online through WikiLeaks, where, I think, it was Brazil, for example, was afraid if they vote the wrong way, they might lose a major investment of some kind.
Quoted in Fox News, “UN agency accused of Hamas ties sees another European nation cut funding,” September 7, 2026:
Finland’s principled decision to defund terror-infested UNRWA will not deprive Palestinians of aid, as it will be redirected through genuine humanitarian agencies such as the World Food Programme that are not systemically infiltrated by Hamas.
Op-ed featured in The Jerusalem Post, “Why Guterres won’t rein in the ‘out of control’ UN rapporteurs on his watch,” September 11, 2026:
In November 2006, then-UN secretary-general Kofi Annan called the special rapporteurs “the crown jewel of the UN human rights system.” Two decades later, a secretary-general has finally said what UN Watch has documented for years. In an interview with the Financial Times, António Guterres admitted that “many” of these so-called independent experts are “totally out of control.”
UN rapporteurs wield the UN’s authority without its accountability, leaving ideology and bias to fill the void.
Featured in News 12, “The UN paid tribute to him as an educator – Hamas paid tribute to him as a martyr,” August 31, 2026:
UN Watch, which monitors the activities of UN institutions, identified the figure: the man Hamas is eulogizing as a martyr is the same UNRWA employee that the UN chose to memorialize.
Quoted in The Australian, “Australia risks dirty deals in bid for UN seat,” September 21, 2026:
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a global non-government agency which monitors the UN, has warned that the diplomatic horse-trading required to win the seat makes any campaign ethically “problematic” for a democracy like Australia. “The amount of capital that you have to invest in it, and the deals that you have to make with many unsavoury regimes in order to win, makes (a campaign) problematic,” he told The Australian. “You have to win the support of so many dictatorships,” Mr Neuer said. “When Australia campaigns, you will see (diplomats) flying to some of the most non-democratic countries. But do we get a disclosure about what promises are made (to win their vote)? (Australia) will say to these countries, ‘don’t worry, we’re not going to give you a hard time, we’re going to give you a free pass.’ I don’t think that is worth it.”
Featured in Le Point, “Netanyahu at the UN… and on the campaign trail,” September 24, 2026:
It may seem paradoxical, but Netanyahu is fond of the UN. Even though his country is the state most frequently condemned by the organisation – to an alarming extent, according to figures from the NGO UN Watch – he enjoys visiting it.
Featured in The Jerusalem Post, “UN chief Guterres slammed for ignoring Iranian regime executions in talk with President Pezeshkian,” September 2, 2026:
UN Watch director Hillel Neuer criticized Guterres over the meeting and wrote on X that,
according to the official readout, “the regime’s slaughter of tens of thousands of civilian protesters was not discussed.”
Featured in Ynet, “US envoy: UN officials knew Francesca Albanese and other rapporteurs were ‘out of control’,” September 2, 2026:
UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer noted that Albanese herself has said she has “never heard from” Guterres, arguing that she was therefore in no position to interpret his private views.
Quoted in The Jerusalem Post, “UNRWA overstated progress on institutional changes, preserved terrorism issues, watchdog says” September 16, 2026:
“UNRWA has graded its own homework and awarded itself high marks,” UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer said. “But issuing a policy is not the same as enforcing it. Drafting a plan is not the same as implementing it, and closing a recommendation does not mean that the underlying problem has been solved.”
Quoted in WELT, “UN rapporteur sparks outrage with comments about concentration camps,” September 28, 2026:
The NGO UN Watch publicised Albanese’s comments and sharply criticised them: “She cannot name anti-Semitism without replacing the Jews.”
Featured in JNS, “UN Watch report: UNRWA overstated reform implementation,” September 15, 2026:
According to a new investigation by the NGO UN Watch, the results of which were released on Monday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) overstated its completion of reforms promised to donor governments following revelations that employees participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.
Featured in The Jerusalem Post, “Daughter of former Gaza hostage confronts UN over UNRWA funding despite Hamas ties,” September 16, 2026:
Neta Heiman Mina’s statement came on the heels of a scathing report published by UN Watch on Monday, which claimed that UNRWA has substantially overstated its progress on institutional changes, substituting administrative paperwork for actual reform while underlying issues involving terrorism and incitement remain unaddressed.
Featured in Ynet, “‘A UNRWA teacher held my mother in the attic’: Testimony at the UN – and the ‘reform’ at the agency,” September 16, 2026:
Haiman delivered a 90-second statement during a panel discussion on human rights education for children and youth, held to mark the anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training. Her remarks were delivered jointly by UN Watch and Ingénieurs du Monde. “For 48 days, a UNRWA teacher kept my mother trapped in his attic – in terrible conditions, with very little food,” she said. “I ask the UN: How could you entrust the education of the next generation in Gaza to someone who was involved in holding an elderly woman hostage?”
Quoted in National Post, “Marty York: Carney has only doubled down on Trudeau’s Israel failures,” September 22, 2026:
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said in a release earlier this month that UNRWA boasts of sweeping progress “on paper” but, “on the ground, its employees continue to be exposed as members and supporters of terrorist organizations, hateful educational content persists, and Hamas-dominated unions continue to obstruct neutrality and discipline.”
Quoted in Il Riformista, “‘The UN is useless like this. Guterres could become the worst ever.’ The United Nations as seen by Hillel Neuer,” September 26, 2026:
Guterres may be the worst Secretary-General in the history of the UN. He leaves behind an institution that applies moral outrage selectively, provides too much cover for authoritarian regimes, and tolerates anti-Israel bias. He has only now admitted that many of the UN’s special rapporteurs are ‘totally out of control.’ But he has had nearly a decade to address this problem.
Quoted in De Standaard, “UN rapporteur Albanese apologises for comments on anti-Semitism and the Nazi concentration camps,” September 29, 2026:
UN Watch also condemned Albanese’s remarks. “She cannot speak of anti-Semitism without replacing the Jews themselves.”
Featured in National Post, “Ottawa is sending another $100 million to Palestinians without knowing where the money will be spent,” September 30, 2026:
In 2024, an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon killed Fathi al-Sharif, whom Hamas would confirm as one of its senior operatives in the country. Al-Sharif had not only been principal of a UNRWA school right up until 2023, but he had been head of Lebanon’s UNRWA teachers union. A scan of al-Sharif’s social media by the group UN Watch also found photos of him attending Hamas events and inviting known Hamas leaders to his school.
Featured in De Morgen, “‘Moral compass for Palestine’ Francesca Albanese no longer wants to send weapons to Ukraine and thereby garners a storm of criticism,” September 24, 2026:
In recent years, Albanese has said little or nothing about the war in Ukraine, except to criticise the West for having moved swiftly to impose sanctions on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, yet dragging its feet on sanctions against Israel. This time, however, she was persuaded to offer further explanation, and her controversial remarks immediately went viral on social media. The storm has been fuelled, amongst others, by her main opponent, Hillel Neuer of the NGO UN Watch.
Featured in 21News, “Jews were called Muslims”: Francesca Albanese’s astonishing claims about antisemitism,” September 25, 2026:
Francesca Albanese claims that antisemitism was not solely about hatred of Jews and cites the deportees labeled “Muslims” in Nazi camps. These claims have been strongly denounced by UN Watch and do not stand up to historical scrutiny. Its executive director, Hillel Neuer, accuses Albanese of not explaining anti-Semitism but of “completely rewriting its meaning and distorting the history of the Holocaust.” UN Watch is now calling on member states of the Human Rights Council, including France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, to publicly condemn these statements.
Featured in National Post, “Barbara Kay: Shame on the UN for commemorating 25 years of toxic antizionism,” September 20, 2026:
Last month, UN Watch and NGO Monitor held an informative and evocative webinar titled “25 Years After Durban: The lasting impact of the UN World Conference Against Racism.” The panel of experts had all been witnesses to the debacle, and their shock at the experience has kept their recollections vivid and their combative fervour animated. UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer also appeared on the webinar. He linked Durban to the infamous UN General Assembly’s 1975 “Zionism is racism” resolution, which was finally repealed in 1991. But its spirit lived on as a gathering ideological storm, whose inchoate fury was unleashed at Durban. Israel and the U.S. are boycotting the Sept. 28 commemoration event, and UN Watch has launched a petition calling on other countries to condemn and boycott it as well.”
Featured in Jamestown, “‘We’re Coming For You’: PRC Influence in UN Rights Bodies,” September 30, 2026:
One case in particular demonstrates how the PRC uses these donations as a tool to advance its interests. The PRC extended nearly $1 million between 2020–2026 to Alena Douhan, the Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights. Douhan, who departed her post this year, is a professor from Belarus who criticized the international community’s sanctions targeting the PRC for its abuses against the Uyghur population (UN Watch, May 26, p.75).
Featured in The Rio Times, “Chile’s Michelle Bachelet Quits the Race for UN Secretary-General,” September 20, 2026:
Mexico formally presented Bachelet’s candidacy, according to a UN disclosure document dated 4 February 2026. Her own country’s backing had not survived Chile’s change of government. Chile’s new government withdrew its support on 24 March 2026, after President José Antonio Kast took office. Bachelet belongs to the Socialist Party, the political opposite of Kast’s conservative camp. No reaction from the governments of Chile, Mexico or Brazil appeared in the coverage reviewed on Sunday. The Geneva-based group UN Watch, a long-time critic, welcomed her defeat.
Featured in La Voce del Patriota, “Antisemitism: Albanese adds another disgraceful entry to her CV,” September 28, 2026:
The so-called lawyer Albanese continues to add shameful statements to her track record. The latest came during an interview with Clate Vision, reported by UN Watch, in which she claimed: ‘The Nazis called Jews Muslims’ – words that are unseemly and an affront to history. Then, as always, following these statements, she apologises, but by now she has dropped the mask: hers is an obsession.” This was stated by Fratelli d’Italia Senator Ester Mieli, the party’s national head of the Department for Equal Opportunities and Policies against All Forms of Discrimination.
Featured in National Post, “Opinion: A clarion call for Canadians to stand against Jew hatred,” September 20, 2026:
Many years ago, human rights activist Natan Sharansky identified the three Ds of antisemitism — double standards, delegitimization and demonization — that help us understand Jew hatred pertaining to Israel. It is a double standard when Israel’s conduct is singled out and not similarly condemned when practised by other democratic countries. Delegitimization is when Israel’s very existence is portrayed as illegitimate or Jews are denied the right to self-determination. Demonization is when Israel or Jews are portrayed using extreme, dehumanizing or conspiratorial language or imagery. An example of how the three Ds manifest themselves can be seen at the United Nations. According to data from UN Watch, between 2015 and 2024, the UN General Assembly passed 173 resolutions against Israel, compared with 80 concerning all other countries combined.
Featured in Post Timees News, “A senior UN official has called for an end to arms supplies to Ukraine,” September 24, 2026:
Earlier this week, UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental organisation that monitors the activities of the UN, sent a letter to the organisation’s Secretary-General, António Guterres, asking him to condemn the senior official’s comments. According to UN Watch, Albanese exploited his position of authority to express personal views on matters outside his mandate, thereby breaching the UN Human Rights Council’s Code of Conduct. The Code emphasises the need to remain within the bounds of one’s mandate and to refrain from expressing personal political opinions.
Featured in Ynet, “Chile’s Michelle Bachelet Quits the Race for UN Secretary-General,” September 28, 2026:
The photograph, which made headlines in the Iranian media, has angered Jewish and Israeli figures. Hillel Neuer, head of UN Watch, commented: “It’s a disgrace.” Former British diplomat Tom Fletcher, now head of the UN aid agency, is bowing to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, whose regime has just massacred tens of thousands of protesters in January. Fletcher has frequently echoed the Iranian regime’s talking points against the US and Israel.”
Featured in The Australian, “Leadership must expunge uni student drive for blood,” September 25, 2026:
The horse-trading to secure a Security Council seat makes campaigning ethically “problematic” for a democracy such as Australia, Cameron Stewart wrote this week, quoting Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a global non-government agency that monitors the UN. The world body’s attitude towards Israel, a democracy, was clear in the contrived walkout by delegates, planned in advance, when Jewish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the General Assembly on Friday AEST, emphasising that claims of Gaza genocide was “the biggest lie of the century.”
Quoted in Ynet, “UN aid chief Tom Fletcher criticized over gesture to Iran’s foreign minister in New York,” September 28, 2026:
The image shows senior U.N. official Tom Fletcher appearing to bow before Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. The photo, which drew headlines in Iranian media, angered Israeli and Jewish figures. Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, wrote: “Shame. Former British diplomat Tom Fletcher, now head of the UN’s relief agency, bows to Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi whose regime just massacred tens of thousands of protesters in January. Fletcher often echoed Iranian regime talking points against the US and Israel.”
Featured in El Nacional, “Lula’s candidate at the UN suffers an abrupt and premature setback,” September 23, 2026:
According to UN Watch, Bachelet did not go far enough in condemning the poisonings and the detention of political prisoners by Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia, nor the persecution of women who refused to cover their heads in Iran.
Cited in Toronto Sun, “While the world burns, the UN looks away,” September 20, 2026:
Last month, the dictatorship of Eritrea was appointed chair of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s 2026 Social Forum.
Quoted in Ynet, “Anti-Israel UN envoy apologises: ‘I misinterpreted the term “Muselmann,”’” September 28, 2026:
UN Watch, an organization that monitors UN activities and has criticized Albanese, responded to her comments on X: “Even in Nazi death camps: She cannot name Jew-hatred without replacing the Jews.”
Featured in South African Jewish Report, “HPCSA backs down on Mofokeng misconduct finding,” September 15, 2026:
“Special rapporteurs don’t have blanket immunity. They have functional immunity, which covers their words spoken or actions taken specifically in carrying out their mandate, and those limits are very clear in the UN Convention on Privileges and Immunities.” [UN Watch Legal Adviser Dina] Rovner described allowing Mofokeng to avoid a disciplinary process on immunity grounds as “a complete abuse of her position which undermines the immunity convention”.
Featured in UA. NEWS, “In Geneva, former hostage’s daughter questions UNRWA funding,” September 16, 2026:
In Geneva, Switzerland, Neta Heiman Mina, the daughter of former hostage Ditsa Geyman, spoke at the 63rd session of the UN Human Rights Council and questioned the continued funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Geyman Mina spoke on behalf of the Geneva-based organization UN Watch and the international non-governmental organization Ingénieurs du Monde.
Featured in Linfodrome, “Al-Burhan is accused of enabling the production of chemical weapons inside Sudan,” September 8, 2026:
This may be what led international human rights lawyer and UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer to speak of a major catastrophe linked to the fact that the Sudanese army had transformed “chlorinated gas supplied by UNICEF, CARE and the Red Cross for water treatment into lethal chemical weapons”, stressing that “the United Nations and international humanitarian organizations are facing pressing questions that demand answers”.
Featured in Brasil em Folhas, “Finland cuts funding to UN agency linked to Hamas,” September 9, 2026:
The organization UN Watch claims in a report that 12% of the agency’s employees in Gaza are members of terrorist groups. This data was allegedly obtained by cross-referencing employee lists with Hamas records seized by the Israel Defense Forces.
Featured in Cleveland Jewish News, “UN Watch report: UNRWA overstated reform implementation,” September 16, 2026:
According to a new investigation by the NGO UN Watch, the results of which were released on Monday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) overstated its completion of reforms promised to donor governments following revelations that employees participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. UN Watch documented that while UNRWA publicly claimed it had completed 41 of 50 reforms recommended by the Colonna Review, many of them were implemented on paper only.
Featured in Religion News Service, “Israel is not an etrog. It doesn’t have to be flawless to be legitimate,” September 28, 2026:
The pattern of focus on Israel runs deep. By UN Watch’s count, the General Assembly last year adopted 15 resolutions on Israel and 11 for the rest of the world combined — including six in one committee session and none on Sudan, where war has killed more than 150,000 people in three years, according to at least one estimate (death tolls remain highly uncertain).
Featured in Israel 365 News, “112 UNHRC resolutions against Israel, zero against Sudan building chemical weapons while sitting on the Human Rights Council,” September 10, 2026:
In December 2022, the UN’s Economic and Social Council expelled Iran from the separate Commission on the Status of Women mid-term, over its deadly crackdown on women protesting the death of Mahsa Amini. Fifteen months later, in March 2024, that same Commission elected Saudi Arabia, a country that maintains a male guardianship system controlling women’s ability to travel, marry, and make basic legal decisions, as its chair. UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer called the appointment akin to putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank.
Featured in Emes, “An employee honoured at a ceremony appears as an armed Hamas terrorist,” August 31, 2026:
On 8 June 2026, his name was read out at the UN’s annual memorial service for staff members killed in the line of duty. Secretary-General António Guterres attended the ceremony, at which 136 staff members were commemorated, including 80 UNRWA staff from Gaza. It was only after Hamas released the video that UN Watch identified the staff member being commemorated as the same person who appears in the footage as a member of the military wing.
