Draft:Hamas–UNRWA relations

Hamas–UNRWA relations refer to the mutual relationship between Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist group that has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, and UNRWA, a UN agency whose mission is to support Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendants. Over the years, there has been a pattern of cases in which UNRWA's facilities and schools were reportedly used to store Hamas munitions, rockets and equipment. Reports also shown that educational materials taught in UNRWA's schools in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip contain content that promote the killing of Jews, glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis, and promote antisemitism. In multiple cases, UNRWA teachers have been exposed as members of Hamas.

The 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel, which killed over 1,200 people, has further exposed the links between UNRWA and Hamas. Investigations revealed that some UNRWA staff were directly involved in the attack or had ties to militant organizations. As a result, some donor countries suspended funding, though many resumed support after investigations concluded with the firing of several staff members.

Background

UNRWA

Following the 1948 War, UNRWA was established by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) of 8 December 1949 to carry out direct relief and works programmes for Palestine refugees. The Agency began operations on 1 May 1950. defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 War.”

UNRWA’s mission is to help Palestine refugees achieve their full potential in human development. To do this, the Agency provides a variety of services such as health, education and shelter within the framework of international standards to Palestine refugees in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

The organization has survived wars, coups, uprisings, and, in Gaza and the West Bank, even the creation of the first-ever Palestinian governing body, the Palestinian Authority, which operates in parallel with, not in place of, UNRWA institutions.[1]

Hamas

Hamas is a political organisation with a military wing called the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. It has governed the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007.

The Hamas movement was founded by Palestinian Islamic scholar Ahmed Yassin in 1987, after the outbreak of the First Intifada against the Israeli occupation. It emerged from his 1973 Mujama al-Islamiya Islamic charity affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

In 2006 Palestinian legislative election, Hamas secured a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council by campaigning on promises of a corruption-free government and advocating for resistance as a means to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation.

In the Battle of Gaza (2007), Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from rival Palestinian faction Fatah and has since governed the territory separately from the Palestinian National Authority. In 2017, Hamas released a new charter that supported a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders without recognizing Israel.

The United States designated Hamas as a terrorist organisation in 1995, as did Canada in November 2002.

Hidden weapons

Over the years there has been an established pattern of cases where Unrwa’s facilities and schools were used as a storage for Hamas’s missiles and equipment.

At 2014 UNRWA discovered rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip.

Following October 7th, 2023 massacre towards Israel, the IDF troops operated in southern Gaza uncovered a store of weapons stored in a UNRWA school complex, which also included a mosque and a medical clinic.

Under the main UNRWA building is where Hamas kept its intelligence servers. Hamas engineers dug down into the electrical room from UNRWA headquarters courtyard. Also, several caches of weapons belonging to Hamas was found at the UNRWA headquarters including Grenades, rockets, launchers, explosives and a large amount of weapons.

Philippe Lazzarini denied any knowledge of the Hamas data center or the fact that Hamas was digging a massive tunnel beneath UNRWA headquarters. However, there’s a perimeter wall, a gate and cameras, at the gate which log who comes in and out. Thus, whoever worked at UNRWA knew very well who was coming in, and who they were covering for.

Evidence shown the main building in the UN complex, there is a UNRWA’s server room who sits directly above the underground Hamas data center. Some of the cables connect down, showing a line of cables running down to and into the floor, above Hamas' data center.

The Electrical infrastructure in the tunnel, 700 meters (765 yards) long and 18 meters underground, was connected to UNRWA’s HQ, indicating that UNRWA’s facilities supplied Hamas’s tunnel with electricity.

Education

Although UNRWA is obliged to teach the study materials dictated by the UN - in practice, the materials taught in UNRWA schools in the Gaza Strip are written and provided by the Palestinian Authority.

Textbooks based on the curriculum of the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Education demonstrated the amount of wild incitement against the Israel Defense Forces and Jewish settlers, as well as the glorification of “martyrs.” The textbooks are based on the curriculum of the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Education.

For example, on page 61 of the Arabic Language Study Book there is a reading comprehension exercise that contains a story describing the burning with Molotov cocktails of an Israeli bus belonging to the Psagot settlement near Ramallah. The purported attempt to burn Jewish passengers alive is proudly described in the book as a “barbecue party.”

Farid Abu A'Dra, UNRWA's Director of Education overseeing all 250 UNRWA schools in the Gaza Strip, attributed the textbook shortage in the schools to the Palestinian Ministry of Education, stating that they failed to deliver the books on time.

A report by the IMPACT-se, examines educational practices in UNRWA schools during, revealing connections between school leadership and Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Intelligence gathered after October 7, 2023, identifies 12 UNRWA administrators as members of these groups.

The report reviews UNRWA school curricula and Palestinian Authority textbooks, identifying content that glorifies violence, incites antisemitism, and denies Israel's existence. Examples include praise for figures like Dalal Mughrabi, promotion of martyrdom and jihad, and maps replacing Israel with “Palestine.” Despite claims of oversight, the agency has not removed inflammatory material.

Evidence links the October 7 atrocities to years of indoctrination in these schools. At least fourteen teachers and staff at UNRWA schools have publicly celebrated the October 7 massacre and other Hamas attacks on their social media accounts.

One UNRWA teacher in the school system in Gaza, Sarah Alderawy, posted a video clip on the day of the massacre showing Hamas terrorists roaming the Israeli streets with rifles while shooting at Israeli cars and rocket attacks in Israel. Over half of Gaza's students attend UNRWA schools, and at least 100 perpetrators of the October 7 attacks were graduates of the UNRWA education system. The report warns that without reforms, UNRWA risks fueling further radicalization and undermining its mission to promote education and peace.

In February 2017, UNRWA school principal Suhail al-Hindi and engineer Muhammad al-Jamassi were both elected to Hamas’s Politburo while still employed by UNRWA. Ahed Mukayyad, who was responsible for overseeing the educational quality of UNRWA, was identified as a Hamas member. His social media posts praised the October 7 massacre, but UNRWA did not take any action against him before his death.

Awad al-Qiq, another UNRWA teacher and headmaster, led an engineering unit that developed rockets for Islamic Jihad, while Issa Abd al-Hadi al-Batran, a former UNRWA teacher, worked as a senior rocket maker for Hamas. He was dismissed by UNRWA in 2009 after being seriously injured while assembling a bomb.

UNRWA claims that it conducts regular and thorough reviews of all textbooks and educational materials used in its schools in order to ensure they are aligned with UN values and UNESCO standards.

Involvement in the October 7 attack

After the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel, in which armed militants from Gaza killed 1,200 people and abducted 253 others. Most of the atrocities carried out by Hamas were against civilians.

There was series allegations against UNRWA in which a number of its Gaza Strip staff had participated in the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and many of them were members of militant groups.

One of them was Fatah Sharif, top Hamas commander who was also a principal in one of UNRAW'S schools in Gaza and head of UNRWA teachers association. A Hamas statement praised Sharif for his “educational and jihadist work” and called him “a successful teacher and an outstanding principal” for generations of Palestinian refugees. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said he had received a letter from Israeli authorities listing the names of some 100 people allegedly linked to Hamas.

The allegations led more than a dozen donor countries to suspend their funding, causing an initial cash crunch of about $450 million dollars. Since then, all donor countries except for the United States have decided to resume funding the agency.

Eventually, a UN investigation found that nine UNRWA staff members have been involved in the attack on Israel and terminated their employment, found that evidence against nine other staff members was insufficient, and found that there was no evidence against one additional accused staff member.

See also

• Textbooks in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict