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The last few weeks have not been good for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). They were, therefore, good for humanity as two senior UNRWA staffers indicated in a New York Times article that the U.N. agency will shut operations in Judea and Samaria, and the Gaza Strip.
The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman, Yuli Edelstein, welcomed the report. Edelstein’s committee shepherded a new law through the Knesset that declares UNRWA to be a terrorist organization and bans it in Israel. The law is to take effect on Jan. 28.
The United States should follow suit on Jan. 20, the day President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office.
UNRWA crossed the line on Oct. 7, 2023. According to established U.S. criminal law and federal regulations, when UNRWA employees raided, raped, murdered and abducted Israeli civilians, it became a foreign terrorist organization or FTO. The United States should classify it as an FTO, bankrupt it and destroy it.
Let’s review the case:
It is now beyond dispute that UNRWA employees took part in the Oct. 7 massacre, rape and kidnapping of 1,200 men, women and children. In August, the U.N. agency issued a mealy-mouthed admission of this.
Months before, in April, the Israeli government issued a report detailing UNRWA’s participation on Oct. 7. As of the date of the report, Israel identified 12 UNRWA employees for whom they had photographic and other evidence. That does not mean there were only 12 UNRWA employees involved, only that 12 were caught on camera.
Of the 12, seven were teachers, two were school counselors, and the others were humanitarian-aid warehouse managers.
On Oct. 7, 2023, UNRWA “social worker” Faisal Ali Mussalem al-Naami was caught on camera dragging the body of 21-year-old Jonathan Samerano. He murdered Samerano in the rear of an SUV.
A little more than a year later, on Oct. 24, 2024, the Israel Defense Forces eliminated Mohammad Abu Itiwi. He was a Hamas commander who led one of the assaults on Oct. 7, murdering and abducting Israeli civilians who were already fleeing from the Nova music festival. His day job? He drove U.N.-associated vehicles for UNRWA.
In another case, an UNRWA teacher was caught holding hostages for 50 days in brutal conditions.
At least 30 more UNRWA staff members served in support roles for Hamas on Oct. 7. There is a mountain of evidence; Israel has 1,000 team members assigned to the job.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the evidence against UNRWA as “highly, highly credible.”
UNRWA’s admission should make this an open-and-shut case. Yet nothing involving the United Nations ever is. To satisfy the skeptical, let’s peel back the next putrefied layers of this onion.
Israel details 485 UNRWA employees who are (or were) active members of Hamas’s armed military wing, including commanders. Documented cases are too numerous to list, but they include educators and school principals who were Hamas commanders. Israel warned UNRWA of the problem before Oct. 7, yet the agency did nothing.
The next layer of the onion includes UNRWA employees who are actual members of foreign terror groups, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad or others but not confirmed members of the military wings. According to Israel, nearly 1,470 people fall into this category.
The United Nations does not consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization and permits Hamas members to work for UNRWA. “Oh, I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll, and I don’t see that as a crime,” said former UNRWA commissioner-general Peter Hansen in 2004.
While UNRWA might not care that its employees work for and collaborate with Hamas and other FTOs, the United States does. The United States classified Hamas as an FTO in 1997.
Another layer of the onion is UNRWA’s history of permitting U.S.-designated FTOs to borrow its facilities. The FTOs take full advantage, using the sites as hideouts, as weapons storage facilities, and for planning attacks against civilians. They even let Hamas use UNRWA’s headquarters until Israel destroyed the campus in July.
The next layer of UNRWA’s rotten onion is the funding of terror. UNRWA funds terror in two primary ways. First, it skims donor money. Second, it creates thousands of phantom “jobs” for FTO members who pursue their real career: jihad. UNRWA employees have an improbably high absenteeism rate. Some never show up.
A group of Jewish families whose loved ones were murdered by UNRWA employees or terrorists supported by UNRWA is suing the U.N. agency in New York and pursuing the skimming theory.
UNRWA has no independent outside auditor. It does not follow GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) or other accepted accounting procedures. It deliberately obfuscates and hides expenses. Billions of dollars are unaccounted for.
The last layer, for purposes of U.S. anti-terror statutes, is UNWRA’s general support for FTOs. A large percentage of UNRWA’s 30,000-member workforce foments terror even among young children in violation of United States law. The evidence shows that they engage in these activities in UNNRWA facilities on company time.
From 2007 until 2017, the United States’ contributions to UNRWA totaled a staggering $3.6 billion. In August 2018, the United States ended donations to UNRWA. Democrats reversed course in April 2021, donating another $1.2 billion up to the Oct. 7 massacre. It was a significant blunder.
Terrorism is defined in Sec.140(d)(2) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” (See, 22 U.S.C. Sec. 2656f(d)(2).)
When terror is undertaken by a group like UNRWA, the U.S. Secretary of State, in consultation with the U.S. Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, has the power to declare that a group is an FTO. (See, 8 U.S.C. § 1189.)
If the United States were to take this path, it would paralyze UNRWA. The group’s accounts would be frozen. Its assets would be blocked, and it would be unable to use mainstream or Western banking institutions. Private and even sovereign donors would potentially transgress U.S. law by contributing funds. UNRWA’s culpable employees would be subject to extradition and arrest.
Nor is there immunity under U.S. law. Murder, rape and abduction of Jewish civilians remain outside the scope of UNRWA’s official duties.
Following UNRWA’s direct involvement in, and support and funding of, terror, there is no other reasonable conclusion. UNRWA has become a foreign terrorist organization, according to U.S. law. Now is the time to end it.
