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On October 24, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres declared that the October 7 massacre "did not happen in a vacuum". "He was right," says lawyer Hillel Neuer, executive director of the United Nations Watch organization. "The attacks were perpetrated by Palestinians who for generations were indoctrinated with hatred."

Neuer noted it in a special report, titled "The Case Against UNRWA", that he intends to present today (Tuesday, January 30) to the US Congress at a hearing in the Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations - a hearing that will focus on case that shattered this week in the face of the international community - the exposure according to which UNRWA employees Participated and/or assisted Hamas in the October 7 massacre.

The evidence for this inconceivable fact was presented on Friday by Israel's Military Intelligence chief to the US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lowe and to David Sutherfield, the American envoy for humanitarian affairs, including the names and positions of UNRWA employees and the accusations against them.

According to a New York Times article, these are 12 employees whose identities have been verified, who were accused of assisting Hamas in carrying out the murderous attack or in the days after it. Ten of them were described as members of Hamas, and another one was said to be affiliated with the Islamic Jihad.

Seven of the accused also served as teachers in UNRA schools, teaching subjects such as mathematics and Arabic. Two others worked in other positions at the schools, and another three were described as a clerk, social worker from Nuseirat, in central Gaza, and a storeroom manager.

According to the New York Times, the most detailed accusations concerned a school counselor from Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, who is accused of working with his son to kidnap a woman from Israel. Another worker was described as having participated in the massacre at a kibbutz where 97 people died.

The social worker is accused of helping to bring the body of a dead Israeli soldier to Gaza, as well as distributing ammunition and coordinating vehicles on the day of the attack. According to the article, the Times verified the identity of the storeroom manager, whose social media profile lists him as an UNRWA employee and shows him wearing U.N. branded clothes. Three others received text messages instructing them to report to pick-up points on October 7, and another worker was instructed to bring in RPGs stored at his home.

The article notes that according to the Israeli dossier, Israeli intelligence officers were able to establish the movements of six of the men inside Israel on Oct. 7 based on their phones; others had been monitored while making phone calls inside Gaza during which they discussed their involvement in the Hamas attack.

Meanwhile, Almog Booker (Channel 13, Israel) revealed yesterday that another UNRA employee, a teacher at one of the organization's schools in Gaza, was holding an Israeli hostage. It was also reported that UNRA employees who held Israeli hostages used UNRA facilities to transfer the abductees from one place to another.

UNRA was involved up to its neck in terrorist activities

The shocking exposé led to a domino effect in the international community, when following it since Friday, more and more countries have announced that they are suspending UNRWA funding. As of today, the list includes the US, UK, Scotland, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, France, Estonia, Japan, New Zealand  and the European Union.

The UN Secretary General said he was "shocked by the accusations", announced that his organization had opened an investigation against the accused employees and promised to punish any UN employee who was involved in terrorism, but mostly sounded concerned about the suspension of international funding to UNRWA.

But did this information - that UNRWA employees are collaborating with Hamas terrorists - really surprise the world? Did they all really not know? Did the UN really not know?

The truth is that the fact that UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, systematically and consistently engages in the Incitement to jihadist terrorism and antisemitism and was even involved up to its neck in the terrorist activities of Hamas and Islamic Jihadists has been well known for many years, and the evidence for this was presented to the UN and before governments throughout the world.

Here are some of the main ones:

In 2003 - Israel published a document detailing UNRA operations used as a cover for Palestinian terror operations, including smuggling weapons in UN ambulances and holding meetings of the Tanzim in UN buildings.

at an exchange of fire between the IDF and terrorist operatives. Two terrorists wearing uniforms got into the UNRWA ambulance, accompanying a wounded operative who was armed and wearing a uniform. Another armed terrorist in civilian clothes was seeing fleeing the scene. In response, UNRWA head Lionel Brisson claimed that the ambulance driver and nurses ordered the armed men to get out, but one of them got out and threatened the driver, saying that if he didn’t drive directly to the hospital, he would be killed.

On May 11, 2004 - after the murder of six IDF soldiers (the first of two consecutive attacks in the Gaza Strip in which Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists attacked two IDF APCs and killed 11 soldiers) a UNRA ambulance was recorded evacuating terrorist operatives from the combat zone (watch the video here). In a Reuters report, two ambulances were shown arriving at an exchange of fire between the IDF and the terrorists. Two terrorists dressed in uniform are seen entering the UNRWA ambulance, accompanied by another wounded terrorist who was armed and also wearing uniform.

In 2008-2009 - according to an article published by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, IDF investigations revealed that before and during Operation Cast Lead, Hamas consistently and methodically used ambulances for the purpose of transferring military operatives and senior figures between the various battle zones , sometimes while disguising them as wounded, and transporting rockets and other weapons. Also, during Operation Cast Lead, ambulances were used to smuggle senior Hamas officials out of the Gaza Strip. According to the article, Mahmoud Abbas even attacked Hamas leaders for using ambulances to flee to Sinai during Operation Cast lead, in a speech he gave at the Arab American University in Jenin.

In 2013 - video footage entitled “Camp Jihad” showed UNRWA summer camps inciting hostility to Israel among young Palestinians. "We teach the culture of the Nakba to campers,” emphasized Nasrin Bisharat, a UNRWA social worker at the Balata camp, in the video. “We try, on days like Nakba Day, to commemorate the Nakba in the school".

In 2014 - on July 30, 2014, during the Operation Protective Edge, IDF soldiers discovered a terrorist tunnel whose entrance was in a UNRA medical clinic in Khan Yunis. During the IDF's operation, Hamas terrorists detonated 12 explosive devices hidden in the walls of the clinic, killing three of the soldiers.

On July 22, 2014, during the ground operation, the IDF identified two Palestinian terrorists traveling in ambulances. In a video posted by an IDF spokesman, the terrorists are seen entering the ambulance and driving away. The IDF did not attack the ambulance for fear of possible civilian passengers.

In a 2015 report, the UN itself admitted that Hamas and/or Islamic Jihad stored rockets in UNRWA schools and fired rockets from them.

Testimonies of UNRA personnel

Furthermore, among the evidence accumulated over the years, there are also testimonies from UNRA personnel themselves. In 2004, for example, UNRA Director General at the time, Peter Hansen, admitted that he believes that there are Hamas operatives who receive salaries from the UN, but claimed "I don't see this as a crime. Hamas is a political organization, and not every member of it is a military operative".

In a report entitled "Fixing UNRWA", published in January 2009 by James Lindsey, UNRWA's former legal adviser, who is also a researcher for the Washington Institute for Middle East Policy, he stated: "the agency makes no effort to discourage supporters or members of Hamas (or any other terrorist group) from joining its staff… it does not subject applicants in the West Bank and Gaza to pre-employment security checks, nor does it check up on staff members to see what they are doing outside office hours".

A survey conducted by the research institute IMPACT-se of new UNRWA-labeled study materials produced by UNRWA’s educational staff in Gaza labeled for use in 2022, concluded: "Our extensive research of PA school textbooks has consistently shown a systematic insertion of violence, martyrdom, overt antisemitism, and jihad across all grades and subjects, with the proliferation of extreme nationalism and Islamist ideologies throughout the curriculum, including science and math textbooks; rejection of the possibility of peace with Israel; and the complete omission of any historical Jewish presence in the modern-day territories of Israel and the PA".

It is not about a few bad apples

Hillel Neuer from UN Watch has been monitoring Antisemitism and incitement against Israel and the Jews at UNRWA for years. From 2015 until today, his organization exposed over 150 Facebook pages of UNRWA staff that contain anti-Semitism and incitement to jihad and terrorism, which constitute a blatant violation of the neutrality that should characterize the United Nations. "It's not about a few bad apples," he wrote in his X/Twitter account.

In a report published by the UN Watch in February 2017, titled "Poisoning Palestinian Children", the organization revealed evidence of incitement to terrorism and Antisemitism among UNRWA teachers in Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. This evidence included posts on the Facebook pages of teachers who deny the Holocaust, glorify Hitler and encourage their followers to use weapons against Jews.

As Dan M. Berger wrote in a succinct examination of UNRWA recently published in The Epoch Times: "That 75 percent of the entire Palestinian population supports the massacre of Oct. 7 is one of the outcomes of 30 years of poisoning the hearts and minds of these people. With all the poisoning process carried out by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and UNRWA”.

In his latest report on the subject from January 10 of this year, which he intends to present today to the Congress, Neuer details how UNRWA teachers in a 3,000-member UNRWA staff Telegram group cheered and celebrated Hamas’s October 7th massacre while at the same time asking when their UNRWA salaries will be paid. They shared 249,000 messages, including photos and video clips of the massacre, and prayed for the success of the terrorists and the destruction of Israel.

For example, Israa Abdul Kareem Mezher (Group Admin, UNRWA Contract Number30010783 ) excitedly celebrated the Hamas massacre “God is the greatest God is the greatest” and declared “Israel’s time is over”.

Waseem Medhat Abu El Ula (Group Admin, UNRWA Contract Number 30026402) Calls to kill Israelis— “execute the first settler” —and prays for terrorists’ success.

Safaa Mohammad Al Najjar (Group Admin, UNRWA Contract Number 30026166) praised Hamas Mujahidin (“holy warriors”).

Other messages sent were "Oh God, tear them to pieces"; "Kill them one by one"; "Don't leave None of them are behind".

According to Neuer, his organization revealed the information on the pro-Hamas UNRWA Telegram group already on January 10, and the exposé was reported worldwide, so it is impossible that the office of the UN Secretary General did not know about him.

"Yet rather than take responsibility for the fact that UNRWA systematically employs teachers who celebrate the murder of Jews, the first response of Mr. Guterres’ spokesman was to smear my organization — for doing the monitoring that the UN itself fails to do" Neuer wrote in his report to the Congress.

The Trump administration stopped the funding - Biden renewed it

Israel has been pressing for years to close UNRA, but so far it has failed. In 2018, the Trump administration significantly cut funding to UNRWA. However, in June 2023, just four months before the October 7 massacre perpetrated by Hamas, the Biden administration renewed the US commitment to support UNRWA, despite Israel's claims of incitement in UNRWA schools, the employment of terrorist operatives and the perpetuation of the problem of the Palestinian exodus. The administration announced that it would donate 153.7 million dollars to the organization, although it was conditional on UNRWA taking all possible measures to ensure that no part of the donation is transferred to terrorist activities.

In the UK, journalist Karen Harradine has been warning for years about UNRWA’s complicity in the Hamas and Jihadist war against Israel, including the history of its stuff of spreading blood libels both on social media and in its schools, letting Hamas and PIJ use children as human shields in their Gazan schools and running summer camps in Gaza where children are indoctrinated into hating Israel and glorying jihadists, as well as undergoing military training.  "Only the wilfully blind can ignore Hamas’s siphoning off of foreign aid to fund its war against the Jewish state, and finance the luxury habits of its leaders", she wrote on August 30, 2022.

UNRA has become part of the problem

The unfathomable absurdity of the case is that the United Nations - the same organization whose tribunal, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, tried Israel in a show trial on alleged suspicion of committing genocide - is collaborating with Hamas, an organization that openly and loudly declares that its goal is to eliminate the State of Israel, in carrying out acts of terrorism and has participated even in the most horrifying massacre in Israel's history. What's more, UNRWA's testimony was used in the trial to bolster the claims against Israel.

Neuer quotes the words of Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis from 2018: “UNRWA has become part of the problem. It supplies the ammunition to continue the conflict. By supporting UNRWA, we keep the conflict alive. It’s a perverse logic”.

"If the United States and other governments that fund UNRWA truly care about helping Palestinians and Israelis, it’s time to end this perverse logic", Neuer wrote.