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Join Telegram ChannelFollowing numerous allegations and accusations against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) due to its links to terrorists involved in the Hamas terrorist massacre in Israel, scandal-hit agency faces new allegations of wrongdoing.
UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO, released parts of a 150-page dossier that Executive Director Hillel Neuer told Fox News Digital, showing “high-level UNRWA staff who are complicit in terrorists, who meet them regularly.
Before presenting his documentation to the world, Neuer attempted to discuss it directly with UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini. In a letter to Lazzarini, Neuer explained that Lazzarini's staff had previously complained that UN Watch had not submitted its reports to UNRWA for comment before their publication. Neuer then recounted several attempts to personally meet with Lazzarini to discuss UN Watch's findings and explained that when he released his dossier, Lazzarini would be unable to “pretend…that we don't show you the evidence in advance.”
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A UN vehicle enters the UNRWA offices in Jerusalem. April 2, 2024. (Yoav Dudkevitch/TPS)
Neuer's group then published photographs of senior UNRWA officials, including Lazzarini and former UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krahenbuhl, meeting with suspected terrorist leaders. “You won't find these photos on [UNRWA officials’] our own social networks,” he said. “We found them in our own way, but they don't publish them.”
Neuer pointed Fox News Digital to two undated photos showing Lazzarini meeting with groups that included members of terrorist organizations, including the Islamic Jihadist Movement, the Ansar Islamic League and Hamas.
In another photo from late 2014, several UNRWA regional directors meet with Hamas member Ali Baraka. Neuer said, and an Al Watan Voice report confirms, that UNRWA staff wanted to “congratulate [Baraka] on the occasion of Hamas' anniversary.
A Hamas terrorist takes part in a military parade. (Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File photo)
In another case, Neuer said he was able to find a photo and transcript of a February 2017 meeting between former UNRWA chief Pierre Krahenbuhl, Baraka, and members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and others. According to UN Watch, Krahenbuhl told the assembly that “we are united and no one can separate us.”
In September 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice announced “terrorism, conspiracy to murder, and sanctions evasion charges” against Baraka and five other Hamas leaders for their role in the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack. , which killed 40 Americans and more. 1,000 more.
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Pierre Krahenbuhl, Commissioner General of UNRWA, speaks during a press conference in Amman, Jordan, August 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Raad Adayleh, File)
Krahenbuhl and his team were investigated in 2019 for reports of “sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and other abuses of authority.” Krahenbuhl resigned from his position, but was appointed in April 2024 to head the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Prominent voices in Congress have demanded that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power “persuade the ICRC to reconsider this nomination” given Krahenbuhl's “disastrous tenure” as as Commissioner General of UNRWA.
Fox News Digital asked the ICRC about photos of Krahenbuhl posing with terrorist leaders and Congress's concerns about his suitability for the Red Cross position. A spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the ICRC “was not present at the meeting, so cannot comment on the full context of the discussion.”
They also said Krahenbuhl “has demonstrated, through his work at the ICRC and his decades of humanitarian experience, that he has only one goal: ensuring aid to civilians in conflict zones.” Meeting with any group that controls access to civilians is an essential part of the meeting. Work of the ICRC and other humanitarian organizations in conflict zones.
Allegations of hatred within UNRWA Education
The latest UN Watch dossier also includes interviews of UNRWA students conducted by local Palestinian film crews over a three-week period during the summer of 2024. In one interview, a 14-year-old former student from UNRWA's Ein Arik Mixed School said his school taught him “to fight and resist” so that “Palestine is liberated and our lands return to us by the good grace of Allah.” The child later explains that the solution for Jerusalem must “kill the Jews.” We are getting rid of the Jews.”
A second NGO, IMPACT-se, has published numerous reports on educational materials used in UNRWA schools for more than two decades. In a November 13 report, IMPACT named 12 directors, deputies, directors or deputy directors of high-ranking UNRWA training centers who were members of Hamas or PIJ. The report notes that nine of the 12 people participated in the October 7 terrorist attack, “some even serving as Nukhba agents,” members of Hamas special forces units. Two of the directors who were both members of UNRWA and Hamas ran schools “under which the Hamas tunnels were built.”
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UNRWA in Gaza on June 20, 2023. (Ahmed Zakot/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The latest IMPACT-study complements March 2023 findings that two UNRWA schools run by Hamas operatives had “promoted[d] “Violence and Terrorism in Self-Created Study Material.” Now, IMPACT-se has named three additional schools where Hamas operatives served as UNRWA personnel. The NGO found that these schools encouraged “defamation against and non-recognition of Israel” and “insert free[ed] content promoting hatred and violence against Israel in grammar exercises.
IMPACT-se found that UNRWA schools “shamelessly flout[ing]” UNESCO standards, which include “building peace, respecting non-Palestinian groups and avoiding incitement to violence.”
The group's report cites information claiming that “more than 10 percent of 510 [senior] “Employees of the UNRWA education system in the Gaza Strip” are members of PIJ or Hamas. UNRWA members are not permitted to participate in terrorist groups designated by the UN Security Council. But as Neuer explains, “the UN terrorist list is one of the 'thinnest lists in the world,' because 'Russia and China can block any designation they don't like.'” Neuer said stated that this means “there are virtually no Palestinian groups” on the list.
Fox News Digital has contacted UNRWA media officials numerous times for its response to the content of the IMPACT-se and UN Watch files, to allegations that UNRWA schools are not adhering to UNESCO standards and Lazzarini's refusal to meet Neuer.
UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini addresses the gathering on the opening day of the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva. (Jean-Guy Python/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Bill Deere, director of the UNRWA Representative Office in Washington, told Fox News Digital: “UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini has warned against the spread of disinformation against UNRWA,” which, according to him, “aims to create chaos and distract attention from political objectives”. dismantle the Agency.” Reiterating the contents of a statement shared by Lazzarini on X following the publication of Neuer's dossier, Deere said: “UNRWA recommends, before giving oxygen to accusations like these, to double-check the source and question the intention to avoid becoming an echo chamber for disinformation and de facto fueling hatred and endangering the lives of others.
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Speaking to UN Watch interviews with UNRWA students, he said: “What they don't tell you is that these children were filmed without the knowledge or permission of their parents. parents,” Deere said. “The children were isolated and asked a series of leading questions designed to elicit a response. This is more than misleading, it is twisted and desperate.”
The United States was among several countries to suspend support for UNRWA in January after the first evidence emerged of its members' participation in the October 7 terrorist attack. Congress suspended funding for UNRWA until March 2025.