Background:
For decades, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has been criticized for institutionalizing the Palestinian refugee crisis, the problematic anti-Israel and antisemitic content taught in its schools, the terrorist affiliations of some of its staff, and for its complicity with terrorist activities - including the use of its premises by terrorist groups. As a UN entity, UNRWA is obligated to uphold neutrality which includes ensuring that terrorists are neither employed by the agency, nor present on its premises.
Founded in 1949, UNWRA was established to provide relief and programs for Palestinian refugees after Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. UNRWA classifies Palestinian refugees as those who left Israel in 1948; those who left the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967; those who were abroad but were subsequently not allowed to return to Israel; and all of their descendants. Refugee status is granted regardless of whether descendants have been resettled or obtained legal residency/nationality in another country. According to UNWRA, this totals five million Palestinian refugees, while the original estimated Palestinian refugee count was 750,000. UNRWA’s policy of including the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who left in 1948 and 1967 into the refugee population for demographic and aid purposes is unique among refugee populations, and is not a done for any other refugee group.
Israel believes the UNRWA statistics are exaggerated and further distinguishes “refugees” from “displaced persons” and from “expired permit Palestinians” who were abroad at the time the conflicts ensued and were not allowed to return.
UNRWA is the only UN body that works specifically with one refugee population – Palestinians - while the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has a global mandate and works with every other refugee population. UNWRA is almost entirely funded by UN Member States with some funding coming from tax exempt foundations such as UNRWA USA National Committee, and the General Assembly has renewed its mandate every three years consecutively (most recently until June 30, 2026).
Around 30,000 people are employed by UNRWA around the Middle East, thousands of whom work in its schools. According to Israeli intelligence, before October 7th 2023, over 450 active members of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations were employed by UNRWA in Gaza. Additionally, in July 2024, evidence uncovered by the IDF found that at least 75 of the 510 employees in UNRWA's education system in the Gaza Strip who hold senior positions (school principals and their deputies, directors and deputy directors of training centers) are members of Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.” The IDF provided details, including ID numbers, UNRWA schools of employment, organizational affiliations and positions, of 12 of such individuals to the public.
Involvement in the October 7 massacre:
Following the October 7, 2023 massacres in Israel perpetrated by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the IDF uncovered evidence that several UNRWA employees participated in the killing, kidnapping and brutalizing of civilians in Israel. A video of two UNRWA employees loading the body of Yonatan Samerano, a 21-year-old Israeli murdered on October 7, into a truck heading for Gaza was circulated widely online.
In January of 2024, Israeli authorities presented UNRWA with allegations that 19 of its employees based in Gaza had been involved in the October 7 attacks. Subsequently, Commissioner General of UNRWA Philippe Lazzarini stated that the contracts of implicated staff members were terminated and that an investigation was underway. In response to the allegations, several countries including the US and European Union paused or suspended funding to UNRWA.
Despite the IDF allegations, the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) investigation concluded that only 9 of the 19 implicated UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7th attack. UNRWA has maintained that the issue of neutrality breaches has been resolved through the investigation and is a case of “a few bad apples.”
UNRWA facilities used as terror infrastructure:
Hamas and other terror organizations have long used UNRWA infrastructure across Gaza to house their military operations, including using them as a base of operation, to fire mortars at Israel and to provide access doors to terror tunnels underneath. As early as 2009, Hamas terrorists were found in UNRWA schools by the IDF. In 2014, there were multiple instances of terrorists firing from UNRWA schools, as well as rockets found stored in an UNRWA school.
Throughout its time in Gaza following October 7, the IDF found over thirty UNRWA facilities, including schools in Gaza containing terror infrastructure. On several occasions such facilities have been used to fire rockets at Israeli civilian areas. Beneath the UNRWA Headquarters in Gaza, the IDF discovered a Hamas subterranean data center which included computer rooms, servers, living quarters, and industrial power banks used to conduct Hamas terror activities.
Seized records from Hamas’ Qassam Brigades (Hamas’ military wing) show that to Hamas, schools and civilian facilities serve as “the best obstacles to protect the resistance.”
Pictured: Weapons recovered by IDF troops in the UNRWA headquarters, in a photo published by the IDF on February 10, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)
Pictured: An electrical room serving an underground Hamas data center, beneath the UNRWA headquarters, uncovered by the IDF in Gaza City, February 8, 2024. (Emanuel Fabian/Times of Israel)
UNRWA Education and Terrorism:
For decades, there has been deep concern about anti-Israel and antisemitic content taught in UNRWA schools (at which 545,000 students are enrolled), both in the official curricular materials and in lessons by individual teachers. UNRWA claims to review all teaching materials taught in its schools to assure appropriate content and UNESCO standards, as well as to supplement host country materials. According to IMPACT-se, an organization that analyzes teaching materials around the world, in the Palestinian territories, UNESCO schools use the Palestinian Authority curriculum which, though revised in 2016, continues to contain antisemitic and Jihadist incitement content, sometimes more severe than previous iterations.
In 2021, IMPACT-se reviewed educational materials distributed during the COVID-19 pandemic for distance learning at UNRWA schools. Incitement to violence, hatred, and glorification of terrorism was found in the textbooks. For example, students were told to do mathematics problems using martyred terrorists from the First Intifada to calculate equations and told to “defend the motherland with blood.” Following the release of IMPACT-se's 2021 review, UNRWA Chief Lazzarini stated that the hateful materials were published by accident and replaced.
The November 2024 report by IMPACT-se details textbooks and teaching materials from five UNRWA schools run by senior Hamas leaders in Gaza, and again found glorification of terrorism, anti-Israel and antisemitic content in its educational materials.
Some educators at UNRWA schools have been discovered to be terrorists. Fateh al-Sharif, an UNRWA Principal and Teachers' Union leader, was confirmed by Hamas to be their commander in Lebanon after he was killed by an Israeli strike in September 2024. While principal of an UNRWA school, Al-Sharif repeatedly posted images of students dressed in Hamas uniforms and holding guns, as well as images of himself with Hamas members, pictured in images found by UN Watch on Al-Sharif's Facebook profile. Al-Sharif was repeatedly seen inviting other Hamas terror leaders to his UNRWA school. In March 2024, Fateh al-Sharif was suspended by UNRWA for breaches of neutrality which led to widespread protests and strikes at UNRWA schools for his reinstatement.
In several cases, after Israel provided evidence and warned that UNRWA educators were militants in terror organizations, they remained employed by the organization.
Pictured: Collage of students posted by Fateh al-Sharif to his Facebook profile.
UNRWA Leadership Meet with Terrorists:
UN Watch discovered that in 2017, Pierre Krähenbühl, Commissioner General of UNRWA at the time and current Director-General of the ICRC, met with Hamas and PIJ leaders to discuss the “spirit of partnership” between the UN agency and the terrorist groups, telling them: “We are united, no one can separate us.”
According to findings by UN Watch, the practice of UNRWA chiefs meeting with terrorists has been ongoing, including with current UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini. He met with officials from the Palestinian Joint Action Committee, a coalition of Palestinian armed groups in Lebanon, in March 2021. During the meeting, which included a discussion of UNRWA’s cash assistance to refugees, Lazzarini spoke with Hajj Abu Suleiman Al-Saadi, an Asbat al-Ansar terrorist, and Sheikh of the Palestinian Jihadi Movement, Jamal Khattab, among others. The Palestinian Joint Action Committee is headed by leaders from each domestic branch of the armed groups including DFLP, Hamas, Palestinian Jihad, and Asbat al-Ansar.
Additionally, in 2004, then Commissioner General of UNRWA Peter Hansen was quoted saying "I am sure there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll. And I don't see that as a crime," during an interview with CBC News.
Israeli Reactions to UNRWA Activities:
Israel has repeatedly shared with UNRWA leadership and the UN Secretary General its information on UNRWA’s entanglement with terrorists by way of official letters and complaints against the organization, to little effect.
On October 28, 2024, Israel’s parliament voted to ban UNRWA operations in Israel and significantly restrict its abilities to operate in Gaza and the West Bank,
After passing the legislation, Israel briefed diplomats from countries that fund UNRWA on the documents of evidence it has compiled proving the organization’s ties to terrorist factions. Gazan residents themselves have said in interviews that it is widely known that Hamas has operatives in UNRWA schools, as reported by the New York Times.
International Legal Reactions:
The mounting evidence against UNRWA for its severe breaches of neutrality and complicity with terrorism have led to international legal actions against the UN agency, as well as governmental suspension of funds.
In January 2024, the United States Congress froze funding for UNRWA until at least March 2025 following the allegations of staff membership in terror organizations, and in December 2024 Sweden completely halted funding for UNRWA for 2025 while nearly doubling its funding for other aid organizations. Also in December 2024, the Dutch Parliament voted to gradually phase out funding for the agency until 2029, when only 1 million Euros will be granted.
Several lawsuits have been filed against UNRWA by October 7th survivors and families of victims, one of which was filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan by about 100 Israeli plaintiffs alleging that UNWA “aided and abetted” Hamas by providing $1 billion in aid to Gaza which was diverted to Hamas to support its terror activities and infrastructure.
UNRWA USA is being sued by the National Jewish Advocacy Center, Inc. (NJAC), on behalf of ten Plaintiffs in US federal court claiming that UNRWA USA aided and abetted terrorism through its monetary support of UNRWA. The Plaintiffs argue that UNRWA USA violated the Anti-Terrorism Act, as amended by the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, by aiding and abetting and knowingly providing support and resources to UNRWA and Hamas, who they claim jointly carry out terrorist activities.