The United States temporarily suspended funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency last week after it was revealed a number of UNRWA staffers were directly involved in the October 7th terrorist attack on Israeli civilians.
As we get more information, the details about UNRWA's direct involvement with Islamic terrorism get worse.
First, the Wall Street Journal reports on the deep partnership UNRWA has with the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip.
At least 12 employees of the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency had connections to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and around 10% of all of its Gaza staff have ties to Islamist militant groups, according to intelligence reports reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The information in the intelligence reports—based on what an official described as very sensitive signals intelligence as well as cellphone tracking data, interrogations of captured Hamas fighters and documents recovered from dead militants, among other things—were part of a briefing given by Israel to U.S. officials that led Washington and others to suspend aid to Unrwa.
Intelligence estimates shared with the U.S. conclude that around 1,200 of Unrwa’s roughly 12,000 employees in Gaza have links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and about half have close relatives who belong to the Islamist militant groups. Both groups have been designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. and others. Hamas has run Gaza since a 2007 coup.
Nearly half of all Unrwa employees—an estimated 49%—also had close relatives who also had official ties to the militant groups, especially Hamas, the intelligence reports said.
“Unrwa’s problem is not just ‘a few bad apples’ involved in the October 7 massacre,” said a senior Israeli government official. “The institution as a whole is a haven for Hamas’ radical ideology.”
UNRWA employees have also held hostages taken into Gaza on October 7. A new dossier reveals the details.
Dossier Revealed: UNRWA Teachers Massacred and Kidnapped Israelis@nytimes: “One is accused of kidnapping a woman. Another is said to have handed out ammunition. A third was described as taking part in the massacre at a kibbutz where 97 people died. And all were said to be… https://t.co/Je7qtgaCLL
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) January 29, 2024
#BREAKING from Israeli journalists @bokeralmog @aviadglickman: Another hostage was held captive in Gaza by a UNWRA teacher, who taught them Arabic. New info reveals that UNRWA employees also transported hostages from one hideout to another through UNRWA’s facilities. https://t.co/4h2HGIcbsk
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) January 28, 2024
A number of UNRWA teachers celebrated the massacre. A headmaster at an UNRWA school was a member of Islamic Jihad, another terrorist organization operating in Gaza.
"By day, Awad al-Qiq was a respected science teacher and headmaster at a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip. By night, Palestinian militants say, he built rockets for Islamic Jihad," Reuters reports. "The Israeli air strike that killed the 33-year-old last week also laid bare his apparent double life and embarrassed a U.N. agency which has long had to rebuff Israeli accusations that it has aided and abetted guerrillas fighting the Jewish state."
UNRWA is infested with terrorists and yet, some Democrats on Capitol Hill are demanding their funding be reinstated.
Cutting off support to @UNRWA - the primary source of humanitarian aid to 2 million+ Gazans - is unacceptable.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 29, 2024
Among an organization of 13,000 UN aid workers, risking the starvation of millions over grave allegations of 12 is indefensible.
The US should restore aid immediately.