Following numerous charges and indictments against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which has links to terrorists involved in the Hamas terrorist massacre in Israel, the scandal-hit agency is facing new allegations of wrongdoing.
UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO, released parts of a 150-page dossier showing “high-level UNRWA staff with ties to terrorists and meeting regularly with terrorists,” Executive Director Hillel Neuer told Fox News Digital.
Before presenting his document to the world, Neuer attempted to address the issue directly with UNRWA Secretary-General Philippe Lazzarini. In a letter to Lazzarini, Neuer explained that Lazzarini’s staff had previously complained that UN Watch had not submitted its report to UNRWA for comment before publication. Neuer subsequently described several attempts to meet privately with Lazzarini to discuss UN Watch’s findings, and that when UN Watch released the documents, Lazzarini would “claim that we were not showing the evidence in advance.” I explained that it wouldn’t be possible.
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A UN vehicle enters the UNRWA offices in Jerusalem. April 2, 2024. (Yoav Dudkevich/TPS)
Neuer’s group later released photos of senior UNRWA staff, including Lazzarini and former UNRWA Secretary-General Pierre Krahenbuhl, meeting with suspected terrorist leaders. “You cannot find these photos (of UNRWA officials) on social media,” he said. “We found them our way, but they don’t post them.”
Neuer pointed to two undated photos on Fox News Digital that appear to show Lazzarini meeting with a group that includes members of terrorist organizations including the Jihadi Islamic Movement, the Islamic Ansar League and Hamas.
In another photo dating to late 2014, several UNRWA regional directors met with senior Hamas member Ali Baraka. Neuer confirmed that UNRWA staff wanted to “congratulate (Baraka) on Hamas’s anniversary,” according to a report by Al Watan Voice.
Hamas terrorists are participating in a military parade. (Reuters/Ibrahim Abu Mustafa/File Photo)
In another example, Neuer said he was able to find photos and transcripts of a February 2017 meeting between former UNRWA chief Pierre Krahenbuhl, Baraka, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). And others. “We are one and no one can separate us,” Krahenbuhl told parliament, according to UN Watch.
In September 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice announced “terrorism, conspiracy to commit murder, and sanctions evasion charges” against Baraka and five other Hamas leaders for their participation in the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack by Hamas that killed more than 40 Americans. 1,000 others.
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UNRWA Secretary-General Pierre Krahenbuhl holds a press conference in Amman, Jordan, on August 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Raad Adaileh, File)
Krahenbuhl and his staff were investigated in 2019 following reports of “sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and other abuses of authority.” Krahenbuhl resigned, but was appointed president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in April 2024. Leading voices in Congress called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power to “persuade the ICRC to reconsider this appointment” in light of Krahenbühl’s “disastrous tenure” as UNRWA secretary-general.
Fox News Digital asked the ICRC about photos of Krahenbuhl posing with terrorist leaders and congressional concerns about his suitability for the Red Cross position. A spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the ICRC “was not present at the meeting and therefore cannot speak to the full context of the discussion.”
They also said that Krahenbühl, through his work at the ICRC and decades of humanitarian experience, has shown that his goals are single. This means securing support for civilians in conflict zones. Meeting with all groups that control access to civilians is an integral part of the United Nations Security Council. “The work of the ICRC and other humanitarian organizations in conflict areas.”
UNRWA Education Hate Charges
UN Watch’s latest dossier also includes interviews with UNRWA students filmed by a local Palestinian film crew over three weeks in the summer of 2024. In an interview, a 14-year-old former student at UNRWA’s Ein Arik co-educational school said: His school taught him to ‘fight back and resist’ so that ‘by the grace of Allah, Palestine can be liberated and our land returned to us.’ The solution in Jerusalem, he explains, “is to kill the Jews. We will eliminate the Jews.”
A second NGO, IMPACT-se, has been reporting extensively on the educational materials used in UNRWA schools for over 20 years. In its November 13 report, IMPACT-se cited 12 senior UNRWA principals, deputy directors, directors and deputy directors of training centers who were members of Hamas or PIJ. The report noted that nine of the 12 were involved in the October 7 terrorist attack and that some “also served as Nukba operatives” affiliated with Hamas’ special forces. Two of the UNRWA and Hamas member principals led schools where “Hamas tunnels were built.”
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UNRWA in Gaza Strip, 20 June 2023. (Ahmed Zakot/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The latest IMPACT-se review complements a March 2023 finding that two UNRWA schools led by Hamas members “promoted violence and terrorism in their self-produced learning materials.” IMPACT-se has now named three more schools where Hamas operatives served as UNRWA employees. The NGO found that these schools promoted “defamation and non-recognition of Israel” and “gratuitously inserted content into grammar exercises that promoted hatred and violence against Israel.”
IMPACT-se found that UNRWA schools were “shamefully ignoring” UNESCO standards, which include “building peace, respect for non-Palestinian groups and preventing incitement to violence.”
The group’s report cites information that “of the 510 (senior) staff of UNRWA’s education system in the Gaza Strip, more than 10% are PIJ or Hamas members.” UNRWA members cannot participate in terrorist organizations designated by the UN Security Council. But as Neuer explains, “the UN’s terrorism list is one of the thinnest in the world.” Because “Russia and China can block designations they don’t like.” Neuer said this means there are “practically no Palestinian groups” on the list.
Fox News Digital reached out to UNRWA media officials several times regarding their response to the contents of IMPACT-se and UN Watch’s dossier, claims that UNRWA schools do not comply with UNESCO standards, and Lazzarini’s refusal to meet with Neuer.
UNRWA Secretary-General Philippe Lazzarini addresses the General Assembly on the opening day of the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva. (Jean-Guy Python/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
“UNRWA Secretary-General Philippe Lazarini has warned of the spread of disinformation about UNRWA, which is intended to create confusion and divert attention from political objectives,” Bill Deere, director of UNRWA’s Washington representative office, told Fox News Digital. said. Disband the agency.” Deere reiterated the language of a statement Lazzarini shared with “We encourage you to question the intent so that you don’t,” he said. “In effect, it promotes hatred and puts other people’s lives at risk.”
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“What they don’t say is that these children were filmed without their parents’ knowledge or permission,” he said in an interview with UNRWA students for UN Watch. “Children were isolated and asked a series of leading questions designed to elicit a response. This is beyond misleading, it is distorted and frustrating.”
The United States was one of a number of countries that suspended support for UNRWA in January after initial evidence emerged of its members’ involvement in the October 7 terrorist attacks. Congress suspended funding to UNRWA until March 2025.
