Hamas terror chiefs “knowingly” took control of an education system responsible for educating hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza and Lebanon under the umbrella of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), according to a watchdog organization.
UN Watch on Wednesday detailed in a 200-page report how UNRWA employed Hamas terrorist leaders as school principals and teachers and allowed the terror chiefs to lead the unions that oversee thousands of their teachers.
The United Nations knew about all of it and did nothing, the group said.
The report also alleges that:
- Teachers and UNRWA educational staff are said to have used social media to post praise of militant acts or terrorists, glorify violence, celebrate specific attacks and engage in antisemitic content.
- Classroom materials (supplementary lessons, reading exercises, maps, blackboard content, etc.) in some UNRWA schools are alleged to include content that glorifies martyrdom, jihad, violence, denies or erases Israel (in maps or lessons) and promotes antagonistic portrayals of Israelis.
- Some UNRWA staff are affiliated and/or linked with terror groups.
- Over 10% of principals and senior education staff in Gaza are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
- Some schools have tunnels underneath or near them used by Hamas.
- The presence or implication of militant or extremist influence in school leadership, curricula or surroundings is presented as systemic rather than isolated.
“The UN agency that raises more than $1 billion annually from Western states with the promise to educate Palestinian children with values such as peace, tolerance, and universal human rights, instead has handed them over to the very operatives who recruit child soldiers, glorify suicide bombers, and preach the annihilation of a UN member state,” the report said.
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