Yonatan Samerano was only 21, with his whole life ahead of him, when he was murdered by Hamas during the October 7 massacre. But that wasn’t enough. As his body lay lifeless on the ground, a video emerged of two men dragging him into a car and kidnapping him to Gaza. Yonatan’s body was later rescued in a heroic IDF operation, and he was buried in Israel.
The two men were later identified as staff members of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza. Over the past two years, there have been horrific testimonies about UNRWA’s involvement on October 7, including photographs taken by an employee, recordings of the organization’s teachers bragging about kidnapping Israeli women, as well as the existence of terrorist infrastructure, tunnel shafts and a large number of weapons in dozens of UNRWA facilities in the Gaza Strip.
ISRAELI MOTHER CALLS ON TRUMP ADMINISTRATION AND MEDIATORS TO BRING HOME THE LAST TWO GAZA HOSTAGES
United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Gaza, June 2023. (Ahmed Zakot/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Yet UNRWA’s involvement did not begin with the October 7 massacre.
On December 2, the Meyerson JCC in Manhattan hosted a screening of the documentary “Unraveling UNRWAwhich shares the bleak history of an organization that has hidden behind the veil of humanitarian aid for too long. It exposed the dangerous reality of an organization that became a front for the terrorist organization Hamas and whose schools became breeding grounds of anti-Semitism, indoctrinating hatred into successive generations and thus facilitating the genocidal agenda that culminated in the barbaric attacks of October 7.
If October 7 taught us anything, it’s that education matters. What our children learn in school matters. Their role models are important. The behavior of our elected officials matters.
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Mohammad Abu Itiwi during the October 7 massacre. The Hamas Nukhba commander was involved in the murder and kidnapping of Israeli civilians on October 7 and, according to the IDF, was simultaneously employed by UNRWA. (IDF Spokespersons Unit)
Against this backdrop of shocking revelations and global outrage, New York’s newly elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has made a deliberate and deeply disturbing choice. A few weeks before he won the election, he chose to participate in a “5K for Gaza” run in Brooklyn, with proceeds benefiting that same organization, UNRWA.
Newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks with members of the media at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in the Queens borough of New York on Wednesday, November 5, 2025. (Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
This decision is not a minor political misstep; it is a profound moral failure that attacks the foundations of our values. Actively supporting an organization riddled with accusations of terrorist links, radicalization in education and participation in the most serious atrocities indicates a dangerous lack of moral clarity and judgment on the part of the executive branch. It also signals an indifference to the safety of the Jewish community, which has already faced a painful wave of anti-Semitism since October 7.
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Yonathan Samerano was killed by Hamas during the October 7 massacre. The two men who allegedly killed him were UNRWA employees. (Courtesy: take them home now)
‘UNraveling UNRWA’ continues to tell the story of an organization that not only undermined its calling to solve the then-Palestinian refugee problem, but also alienated Israelis and Palestinians by perpetuating in its schools the Palestinian delusion about Israel’s ‘disappearance’ and the ‘right of return’. By lending his support and visibility to this cause, the mayor-elect risks injecting this toxic, zero-sum conflict into our city’s politics, prioritizing ideological purity over the well-being and unity of New Yorkers.
It’s easy to stay quiet and say nothing. To pass by the noisy minority in our streets and crawl away. But it will come at a cost – for us, for our children and for our society. When we choose to look the other way, evil is encouraged. If we refuse to call it by its name, we – and the children of this city – will pay the price.
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