Amid the implementation of President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan to end the war between Hamas and Israel, Middle Eastern experts are calling for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) not to participate in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip due to its reported support for the terrorist organization Hamas and its record of serious incompetence.
He added: “The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has for months distributed aid independently of UN channels and prevented abuses by militant groups. Other UN humanitarian operations would be well served to take cover and operate within the shadow of GHF under the sweltering sun of critical human need.”
IDF KILLS HAMAS TERRORIST WHO SAYS WORKING FOR UNRWA, LED ATTACK ON REIM BOMB SHELTER MASSACRE
On the walls of a bomb shelter hang photos showing people seeking refuge six months earlier before being killed during the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, near Kibbutz Beeri in southern Israel, April 7, 2024. REUTERS/Amir Cohen (REUTERS/Amir Cohen)
Dugan, a former diplomat who served in the U.S. mission to the world body, said UNRWA has turned a cottage industry into a sprawling transnational bureaucracy that has perpetuated financial waste and prolonged the conflict by granting refugee status to the descendants of Palestinian refugees after the first war between Israel and Arab states.
“After the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, UNRWA’s crucial mission was to provide direct aid and a work program for 800,000 Palestinian refugees. Its job was to bankrupt itself as quickly as possible, but it went the route of mission creep. Administratively captured by the UN bureaucracy for decades, UNRWA perpetuates the status of refugees which has now risen to 5.9 million,” he said.
Dugan concluded: “After billions of dollars, Palestinians remain desperately dependent on humanitarian aid of the most basic kind. This has positioned UNRWA as a political actor in its own right that goes beyond its original mission. And its politics and relations with Hamas demonstrate that UNRWA has irrevocably lost its foundation in humanitarian neutrality and non-discrimination.”
FILE REVEALS INFORMATION USED TO EXPLAIN UN AGENCY’S DEEP TIES WITH HAMAS IN GAZA
People carry boxes of aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private, US-backed aid group that has bypassed the long-standing UN-led system in the territory, as displaced Palestinians return from an aid distribution center in the central Gaza Strip in June. 8 The UN and major aid agencies have refused to cooperate with the GHF, citing concerns that it was intended to meet Israeli military objectives. (EYAD BABA/AFP via Getty Images)
Touma said: “It also endangered my colleagues in Gaza and seriously endangered their lives as a result of this disinformation. UNRWA has 12,000 staff on the ground in Gaza. It is impossible to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza without UNRWA and its teams. We know that all other attempts to replace UNRWA have been disastrous.”
She continued, “Given [the] above and the action taken by the UN against these claims, these claims remain as such – claims with enormous consequences for the lives of our colleagues, the delivery of humanitarian aid and the reputation of this organization,” she said.
Photos released by the Israeli military show three individuals the Israeli military claims are Hamas terrorists at a UNRWA complex in Rafah. (IDF)
The spokesperson reiterated the directive from “President Trump’s February 4 Executive Order Terminating Funding or Revising Support for Certain United Nations and International Organizations,” which stated that “UNRWA has reportedly been infiltrated by members of groups long designated by the Secretary of State (Minister) as foreign terrorist organizations, and that UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.”
Former IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said: “UNRWA has proven to be irredeemably corrupt, infiltrated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad and part of the reason why Hamas was able to recruit tens of thousands of Jihad-indoctrinated youth and sustain itself through two years of fighting.
Hamas terrorists killed civilians, including women, children and the elderly, when they attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. (Israeli Armed Forces via AP)
“If we want a deradicalized Gaza, Hamas is the first organization that must be removed from power. The close second is UNRWA. Neither should play any role in shaping Gaza’s present or future. Now is the time to invest in a better future for Gaza and the region, and the time to depose UNRWA.”
Conricus said: “Since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, UNRWA has been a facilitator for Hamas’s military build-up. By diverting international aid to meet the civilian needs of the people of Gaza, according to Hamas’s directives, UNRWA has enabled Hamas to spend most of their money on military build-up in the form of digging tunnels, producing missiles, acquiring drones and advanced missiles and paying and training an army. large group of jihadist terrorists.”
UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City, Gaza on February 21, 2024. (Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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He said: “Throughout the two-year war, Hamas fighters systematically used UNRWA facilities and infrastructure to support and sustain their military operations against Israel. Hamas underground command posts were exposed directly beneath UNRWA facilities in Gaza City, including a supply of electricity and IT services from UNRWA offices to the underground Hamas bunker. UNRWA schools throughout the Gaza Strip were systematically used by Hamas as military staging areas and production sites. facilities for weapons, intelligence gathering sites and hideouts for Hamas fighters.”
