In wake of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent recognition that UNRWA is a “subsidiary of Hamas” and “cannot play a role in Gaza” - and as UNRWA mounts a fierce diplomatic offensive to resurrect its role - the Swiss monitoring group UN Watch today unveiled the UNRWA Terror Network, an investigative platform that exposes and maps the systemic infiltration of the UNRWA by terrorist organizations including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The platform is the result of over ten years of research and compiles documented evidence involving nearly 500 UNRWA employees engaged in terrorism, incitement, or membership in extremist organizations.
The findings contradict UNRWA’s repeated claims of neutrality and reveal a longstanding pattern of complicity that has enabled terrorist groups to exploit the agency’s personnel, services, and taxpayer-funded infrastructure.
The UNRWA Terror Network presents verifiable cases of 490 UNRWA staff who are members of terrorist groups, educators who glorify mass murder, and facilities used for the storage and launch of weapons. The database also traces institutional links between UNRWA offices, Hamas-controlled unions, and extremist-aligned NGOs operating under the guise of humanitarianism.
Users can browse between 490 profiles of UNRWA employees and terrorists and a complex web of 889 connections between them, including to the most senior UNRWA officials. Profiles are labeled according to affiliation with UNRWA, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, and more, and include detailed sources and photographic evidence of terror ties.
“This tool exposes what UNRWA and its supporters have tried to conceal for years,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch.
“UNRWA claims to be a humanitarian agency, but the evidence shows it has been infested with agents of Hamas. Many of its employees are not neutral civil servants - they are terrorists in UN uniform. The problem is not ‘a few bad apples,’ as the ICJ effectively ruled, but is rather widespread and deliberate. Continuing to fund UNRWA is not humanitarian aid, it is complicity.”
The platform makes use of a dynamic network visualization that allows users to explore the connections between individuals, institutions, and extremist networks. Each profile is backed by documented evidence, including archived social media posts, official records, testimonies, and investigative materials.
“These 490 exposed UNRWA employees are only the tip of the iceberg,” Neuer added. “UNRWA has operated for decades without meaningful oversight while billions in international aid have flowed into Gaza. Donor governments must now decide: will they continue writing blank checks to an agency that empowers Hamas, or will they demand accountability?”
As world bodies advocate for UNRWA to play a role in the reconstruction of Gaza, the UNRWA Terror Network illustrates why such a prospect must be viewed by all responsible actors as a non-starter.
“As we consider what postwar Gaza ought to look like, one thing is clear: it must be a Gaza free of UNRWA,” Neuer concluded.
KEY FINDINGS:
1. Not Just “Bad Apples,” UNRWA’s Problem is Systemic: Documentation of hundreds of profiles of UNRWA employees who supported or committed terrorism refutes the agency’s “just “a few bad apples” lie. In fact, the UNRWA Terror Network exposes direct ties between UNRWA’s terror-affiliated employees and its senior officials, like Philippe Lazzarini, Pierre Krähenbühl, Claudio Cordone, Matthias Schmale, and Thomas White, showing that they had knowledge of the systemic nature of the problem within the organization. Moreover, many of the terror-affiliated employees in the network are not mere employees but hold key positions in UNRWA employee unions that directly influence UNRWA’s policies. Hamas spokesman and politburo member Suhail Al-Hindisimultaneously served as head of the UNRWA Staff Union in Gaza. Fateh Sharif was both Lebanon’s Hamas leader and UNRWA Teachers’ Union leader. The UNRWA Terror Network exposes that both terror chiefs’ successors in the teachers unions maintain strong links to terror. In total, the network exposes 61 terror leaders with ties to UNRWA.
2. Key Founders of Palestinian Terror Groups Were UNRWA Employees: The UNRWA Terror Network compiles evidence for the first time proving that senior UNRWA teachers and school principals also served as the co-founders of Palestinian terror groups like Hamas and PFLP. These include: Ahmed Nimer Hamdan, Hammad Al-Hasanat, Muhammad Hassan Shama, Ibrahim Abu Salem, Abdullah Abu Izzah, Ghassan Kanafani, Muhammad Yusuf Al-Najjar, Jamal Khattab, Jamil Alyan, and Muhammad Taha.
3. UNRWA Was a Breeding Ground for Hamas Leadership: The network showcases how UNRWA union leaders like Essam al-Daalis, Saeed Sayem, and Abd al-Hadi Said Al-Agha used their UN posts as a stepping stone to becoming high-ranking Hamas political and security officials. Ismail Haniyeh, the deceased former leader of Hamas, recognized UNRWA unions as integral to Hamas’s resistance in an event chaired by UNRWA Union leader Suhail Al-Hindi. Other identified individuals like Mohammad Mohammad Juma Shuwaideh and Hani Kaskin were still employed by UNRWA while operating for terror groups on October 7th. Still others, like Mohammed Al-Jammasi, were first Hamas leaders before joining UNRWA. The revolving door enables Hamas to recruit youth into its ranks. UNRWA students like Jum’a Abdullah Mohammed Al-Tahla put their Western-funded UNRWA education to use by creating rockets for Hamas.
UN Watch’s Call to Action:
- UN Watch is calling on the U.S. to take definitive action to dismantle UNRWA, including by sanctioning its senior leaders for their connections to terror organizations. For the Gaza ceasefire to turn into a sustainable peace, UNRWA must no longer exist.
- UN Watch reiterates its call on governments and international institutions to join the U.S., Sweden, and the Netherlands, and to begin defunding UNRWA
About UN Watch
UN Watch is an independent, nonprofit organization based in Geneva. Its mission is to monitor the United Nations and hold it accountable to the principles of its Charter, including human rights, peace, and equality.
VIEW THE UNRWA TERROR NETWORK HERE
