UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer was interviewed on i24 News about the UN’s ongoing refusal to cooperate with U.S.-led humanitarian aid initiatives in Gaza and UNRWA’s political agenda.
Natasha Kirtchuk, i24 News: First of all, what do you make of reports the UN is pressuring agencies to cut ties with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation after a closed-door session last week?
Hillel Neuer: Well, it’s not surprising, because we’ve seen this attitude consistently from the leadership of the UN. Gutteres, over a year ago, instructed all UN agencies and basically forbade them from dealing with any other effort that would replace UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinians, in any way. So there were reports in several news agencies that he gave an order, Guterres gave an order, to the heads of all UN humanitarian agencies: “Do not dare cooperate in any way with any U.S.-led initiative to replace any of the work that UNRWA is doing.” So the latest reports are just a continuation of that kind of policy. In my opinion, it’s kind of like a mafia-type approach. “If you dare, you know, cooperate with this entity, we’ll break your legs.” That’s kind of the instruction that he gave back then, and we’re seeing it once again.
Natasha Kirtchuk: Right, yeah. I mean, would you say that, you know, there’s a legitimate concern about how the GHF is actually operating, or is this simply politically motivated?
Hillel Neuer: Well, I think it is politically-motivated, because we’re seeing an incredible amount of inversion. The argument put out by the UN, and they’ve been vehement in the past several weeks, more than we’ve ever seen on almost any other issue, certainly from UNRWA because I think they see it as existential that a more effective, non-politicized, authentic, sincere humanitarian effort would show that UNRWA is the opposite-and it is the opposite. The leaders of UNRWA, such as former commissioner Pierre Krähenbühl, said “UNRWA is not merely another aid or humanitarian agency.” “A major part of UNRWA is,” in his words “to be witness to the injustice of 1948.” UNRWA has a whole political, pathological agenda, telling Palestinians they have “a right of return,” which means the right to invade Israel on October 7 and massacre Israelis. That’s the true agenda of UNRWA. And as we know from our reports, UN Watch, UNRWA’s employees in Gaza and Lebanon are infested with Hamas. The head of UNRWA’s 30,000 employees was Hamas Politburo member, Suhail al-Hindi. The head of the UNRWA teachers union, 2,000 teachers in Lebanon, was Fathi al-Sharif, a leader of Hamas in Lebanon. So that’s the true militarization of aid. And so for the UN to accuse Israel of militarizing aid is a complete inversion of the reality.
