A damning new report accuses the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) of allowing senior Hamas operatives to infiltrate and control its education system, raising alarming questions about the agency’s neutrality and the safety of Palestinian students. According to the investigation, Hamas leaders have not only held high-ranking positions within UNRWA’s schools but have also overseen staff unions that govern thousands of teachers, enabling them to shape curricula and block any attempts at reform. Despite their publicly declared allegiance to Hamas and repeated appearances with known terror figures, these individuals faced little or no disciplinary action from UNRWA, the report claims.
UNRWA, which receives over a billion dollars annually from Western governments, is tasked with providing education grounded in values such as peace, tolerance, and universal human rights. Instead, the report alleges that the agency has effectively become a tool for Hamas, allowing classrooms to serve as incubators for extremism. Senior UNRWA staff in Gaza and Lebanon, largely local Palestinian employees, allegedly exert far more influence than the international leadership based in New York, undermining any efforts to maintain neutrality or discipline staff for overtly political or terrorist activities.
The report details multiple instances in which Hamas-affiliated UNRWA officials successfully resisted disciplinary actions or curriculum changes. In Gaza, Suhail Al-Hindi simultaneously served as a school principal and head of the Gaza staff union while openly associating with Hamas leaders. Even after temporary suspension in 2011, protests orchestrated by Hamas forced UNRWA to reinstate him and agree not to discipline employees for “external activities,” a move that the report says institutionalized extremist influence. Similar patterns occurred in Lebanon, where Fateh Sharif held senior positions in the UNRWA Teachers’ Union while serving as a Hamas leader. Despite evidence of his terror ties, UNRWA suspended but never fired him, bowing to union pressure and widespread protests.
According to the report, over 15% of UNRWA’s senior educators in Gaza are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a figure corroborated by Israeli intelligence findings. The agency has repeatedly struggled to implement neutrality mechanisms, with reviews and recommendations to depoliticize staff unions left largely unaddressed. Even high-profile UN officials acknowledged that local Palestinian leadership, rather than international management, controls UNRWA operations on the ground, making any enforcement of neutrality largely symbolic.
The report paints a picture of an agency that, for decades, has allowed ideological extremism to flourish within schools intended to provide safe and neutral education for children. It raises urgent questions about whether Western donor funds, meant to support humanitarian goals, have inadvertently financed the spread of radical ideologies and the grooming of future militants.
