Hamas Fighters Ran U.N. Relief Agency’s Schools, Seized Records Show
At least two dozen people employed by a United Nations relief agency doubled as fighters in Hamas’s military wing or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, internal documents seized by the Israeli military indicate.
The Hamas documents, shared with the New York Times, show that the majority of the UNRWA employees were senior school administrators and most of them doubled as militants in Hamas’s military wing.
The detailed records list the weapons issued to each fighter, their level of physical fitness, and their military specialties. Ahmad al-Khatib, for instance, was a deputy principal at an elementary school in Gaza who was simultaneously working as a Hamas infantry squad commander. Al-Khatib, who has worked for UNRWA since 2013, had been issued a dozen weapons during his time with Hamas, according to the records.
The Israeli military obtained the documents during its multifront regional war against Hamas and Hezbollah, both terror proxies for the Iranian regime. Israel has been fighting Hamas in Gaza since the October 7, 2023, massacre that took the lives of more than 1,200 civilians, marking the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
Although the Times could not independently verify the latest round of documents, the outlet observed similarities to other Hamas records it possesses and matched the names and identification numbers to an UNRWA database. Moreover, the Times interviewed current and former UNRWA employees and current and former students in the Gaza schools to gain a better picture of Hamas’s presence in UNRWA schools.
The documents are the latest evidence detailing the U.N. agency’s apparent ties to Hamas, a longstanding suspicion that has only grown since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Israeli intelligence in January found that a dozen UNRWA operatives participated in the October 7 attack, a discovery that caused the U.S. and other nations to pause funding for the agency. The U.N. subsequently investigated Israel’s discovery and determined that nine UNRWA employees were involved with the massacre.
In February, Israeli forces revealed a large Hamas data center hidden directly underneath an UNRWA school after captured terrorist prisoners disclosed information of its whereabouts. UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini denied any knowledge of the data center, a claim the Israeli military disputed.
More recently, Israel killed a Hamas commander in Lebanon who doubled as the head of an UNRWA teachers union and had been under suspension for ties to the terrorist group. Israel continues to assert that roughly 10 percent of UNRWA staff out of its 12,000-person workforce can be linked to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another terrorist organization in the Gaza area.
UNRWA has accused Israel of waging a smear campaign in order to discredit the agency and put its personnel in harm’s way. The agency is calling for new regulations to stop the spread of Israeli “disinformation” and urging advertisers to stop allowing it.
“This campaign is creating immense reputational damage to UNRWA, currently the largest humanitarian provider for people in Gaza living through an excruciating war. These ads can put the lives of UNRWA personnel at serious risk,” UNRWA said in a statement last week.
The Israeli parliament passed two laws earlier this year banning UNRWA from operating in the Jewish state and preventing Israeli government agencies from maintaining contact with the organization. The legislation effectively bans UNRWA from operating in Gaza and the West Bank because of its terror ties.
Source » msn
