i24: The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, which gives more than $1 billion annually to Palestinian causes, said yesterday that Hamas in Gaza has stolen their supplies, fuel and medical. UNRWA originally said that people claiming to be Hamas health ministry officials had showed up with a truck and taken tens of thousands of liters of gasoline, and that UN people were forced to evacuate. Shortly afterwards, UNRWA deleted the post they made and denied that any looting took place. But UN officials as well as Israelis have confirmed the theft of critical supplies by Hamas did, in fact, happen. Israel has long maintained that Hamas steals humanitarian aid to use for their war against Israel, and said there’s no clear oversight of those billions of dollars that UNRWA funnels into Palestinian areas, saying that it typically ends up arming terrorists. For more on this, we are talking to Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of United Nations Watch. He’s going to be talking to us a little bit about how Hamas has been running their propaganda and how that seeps off into the UN’s own refugee agencies.
Hillel Neuer: Look, UNWRA deleted a tweet that could not be more clear. They had reported that Hamas, the Ministry of Health, and by the way, this is an agency that is quoted every day by the New York Times, by BBC, and every other leading newspaper. The Palestinian Ministry of Health, it’s run by Hamas. They don’t mention that, and they quote their statistics as if they’re reliable. It’s dishonest journalism, to say the least.
So UNRWA had revealed, as you’re showing in the tweet on the screen, that the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Hamas, came and stole fuel and medical equipment. We estimate 24.000 litres of fuel, that’s enough to power water desalination plants for four days to provide water to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, that was stolen by Hamas, this fuel they’re going to use for their terrorist purposes.
So this is very clear that anyone who supports Hamas, and we’re seeing people on campuses, and in European capitals, who support Hamas, certain Muslims and others who are supporting Hamas. That is shocking, because it means you don’t support the Palestinian people. You’re supporting a terrorist organization that steals fuel that’s supposed to be for a humanitarian agency.
Now UNRWA deleted the tweet. I don’t think we need to guess why. You know, two years ago, when there was a previous war with Hamas, there was the head of UNRWA Gaza office, a guy named Matthias Schmale. He had said in a TV interview, when asked, he said that the Israeli strikes on Hamas were very precise. He acknowledged that Israel was targeting the Hamas terrorists, and not as many media and others allege that Israel targets civilians. He said no, Israel’s targeting the terrorists, and it’s very precise.
And when he gave that interview, he suddenly became persona non grata in Gaza. Hamas organized protests, orchestrated protests, against him and basically pushed him out of Gaza and pushed him out of his position. So the second tweet, which denied the first tweet, which they deleted, suggests that the person writing it may have been dangling over a Gaza City rooftop being held by his ankles by Hamas terrorists.
i24: Now you’ve detailed how Hamas uses propaganda efforts when speaking to the world in general. But as of this morning, we started seeing Hamas making propaganda efforts towards the Israeli people. I want to analyze some of the purpose behind that video of the hostages they were showing.
Hillel Neuer: Well, the latest Hamas video of a young Israeli woman, Mia, and you just showed her mom before begging the world to save her baby, who just went to a music festival to have fun and was kidnapped when Hamas terrorists swooped over the the music festival and just fired bullets at people, mowed them down and killed hundreds and abducted many, including Mia. The video purports to show her getting medical treatment in a one-minute video. And that suggests that Hamas is trying to portray itself, perhaps for Western audiences, as if it’s humanitarian to empower its apologists that we’ve seen some on campus who deny the atrocities.
You know, 1400 people were murdered. thousands were wounded, people were tortured in front of their families. Horrific atrocities occurred that really called to mind the Nazis. And that’s something I rarely use as a comparison. But that is the comparison that comes to mind, the evil and brutality. And so Hamas was proud of that. When they did the massacre on October 7, they had GoPro videos on their helmets, to record what they were doing, they recorded some of their atrocities live-streamed on Facebook, but to empower their apologists, they’ll make these other videos, which will allow people to claim that Hamas is humanitarian.
And of course, it’s psychological warfare to terrorize Israelis to keep circulating videos of the hostages. That’s something that Hamas will, of course, do throughout this conflict, to try to terrorize Israelis and torture the entire Israeli people in a psychological way. As they’re torturing psychologically, at least. the hostages they have. And bear in mind, these are young women. These are children, babies, great grandmothers who are Holocaust survivors. Hamas has cruelly abducted hostages who are completely innocent civilians. It’s really shocking.
i24: And you mentioned how they play on world sympathies during these times. And we’re already seeing now, European powers vow increases in funding to Palestinian causes times three, times ten in some cases. How much of this, in your experience, because you’ve seen how the money moves hands to some degree, is just going to end up back in the hands of terror groups aiming to perform genocidal acts against the Jewish people?
Hillel Neuer: Look, the United States had an internal memo, the State Department, not long ago, this administration when they decided to give funding to the PA to give to certain Palestinian agencies and the internal State Department communications acknowledge that there was a risk that the money would be diverted to terrorists purposes. You know, you give money to UNRWA and we’re seeing it now that Hamas has taken 24.000 liters of fuel they’re going to use for terrorist purposes.
Our organization UN Watch has exposed UNRWA teachers and school principals, as recently as last week, who openly, on Facebook, celebrate terrorism. They celebrated the massacre on October 7. They cheered this. They said “God is great” and they glorified the mass murder of Jews. These are UNRWA teachers, they’re UN teachers.
We’re paying for that. America gives about $300 million a year, the EU is giving maybe $150 million a year, Germany $200 million. Canada gives money to it, Australia, all the major democracies are funding UNRWA when we know that they have hundreds of teachers in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, in Syria, who are educating a new generation of Palestinians to antisemitic hatred, and you just go on their Facebook posts, and we’ve documented it.
And we urge all countries that give any money to UNRWA to demand that these teachers be fired immediately and to try to understand why UNRWA systematically hires antisemitic, pro-terrorist teachers. There seems to be something pernicious and poisonous within UNRWA itself.
i24: Hillel, thank you for giving us a glimpse inside how Hamas can reach even beyond their weapon’s range to influence minds in such a pernicious way.
I was just on @i24NEWS_EN to address:
🔹UNRWA's deleted tweet about Hamas' theft of 24,000 liters of fuel
🔹UNRWA's teachers who cheered the Hamas massacre of Israeli families
🔹Hamas's new hostage video and pyschological warfare.https://t.co/CgIFuoIqRU pic.twitter.com/VvMgBmEAbu— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 17, 2023