A new investigation has revealed extensive UNRWA Hamas ties, showing how the terror group has dominated the U.N. agency’s Gaza operations for more than a decade. The report, released by U.N. Watch, alleges that Hamas leaders have embedded themselves into teaching and administrative positions within the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), allowing them to spread extremist ideology using Western taxpayer dollars.
“By knowingly employing Hamas terrorist leaders as school principals and teachers, and by allowing terror chiefs to head the unions that oversee thousands of their teachers, UNRWA didn’t just tolerate extremism—the Western-funded U.N. agency institutionalized it, turning classrooms into incubators of hate,” the report states.
The 220-page document details how at least 22 Hamas members were appointed to significant posts since 2011. Among them was Suhail Al-Hindi, a Hamas leader who also served as an UNRWA school principal and union chief. Between 2006 and 2017, he oversaw 8,000 teachers and 220,000 students across 240 schools before joining Hamas’s politburo.
The report highlights additional cases, such as Fateh Sharif, a former UNRWA school principal in Lebanon, who Hamas later eulogized as its leader there after an Israeli airstrike killed him in September 2024. Despite years of public Hamas ties, UNRWA awarded Sharif a certificate of appreciation before suspending him earlier that year.
U.N. Watch argues the evidence shows a consistent pattern: “UNRWA turns a blind eye to its employees’ ties to Hamas, and to their incitement to Hamas terrorism and antisemitism, unless forced to take action to avoid scandal and preserve its public image in Western countries that are the primary donors.”
