UNRWA let Hamas control its schools, report claims

[Twiglets1]

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) knowingly employed Hamas terrorist leaders as principals and teachers in Palestinian schools, “turning classrooms into incubators of hate,” according to a report published on Wednesday.

UNRWA, which raises $1 billion annually from Western countries, knew about Hamas’s grip on schools “and did nothing,” according to the report by Geneva-based NGO U.N. Watch.

“For years, governments have been writing billion-dollar checks to UNRWA believing they were investing in peace and tolerance. Our investigation reveals the shocking truth: UNRWA’s classrooms have been hijacked by Hamas and turned into incubators of hate. Donor states must confront the reality that they are financing terror by proxy,” said U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer.

The report—titled “Schools in the Grip of Terror: How UNRWA Allowed Hamas Chiefs to Control Its Education System”—largely corroborates Israeli intelligence findings that more than 15% of UNRWA’s senior educators in Gaza, in 60 UNRWA institutions, are members of the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups.

The report explains that UNRWA’s operations on the ground are controlled by local Palestinian leaders, and not by the handful of international staff such as Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, who serves only as the public face, fundraiser and advocate for UNRWA.

Many of these local leaders are Hamas operatives, including the thousands of UNRWA teachers and staff, especially in Gaza and Lebanon, according to the report.

It adds that of UNRWA’s 30,000 employees, more than 99% are local Palestinians; only 120 are international staff.

The report moreover stresses that this is not new.
The international body has fostered a pro-terrorism environment in Palestinian schools for over 75 years of its existence, consistently betraying its vowed mission to educate Palestinian children with values such as peace, tolerance, and universal human rights, it states.

Instead, it has “handed them over to the very operatives who recruit child soldiers, glorify suicide bombers, and preach the annihilation of a UN member state.”

Some of the most infamous Palestinian terrorists were products of the UNRWA education system, the report claims, including the perpetrators of the 1972 Munich Massacre and Mohammed Deif, the now-deceased commander of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades, one of the masterminds of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel.

The late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh himself praised the Palestinian U.N.-based unions for their “role in the path of jihad.”

www.jns.org/unrwa-let-hamas-to-control-its-schools-report-claims/

“These children learn anti semitism at an early age” … very disturbing from every angle including these children not being allowed to be children but rather trainee soldiers.

It would be appropriate to consider the educational needs of children when they are in a position to be educated. Look up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

“Amongst the many uncertainties of the modern world, several indisputable global facts about the health, well-being and learning of young children are beginning to emerge, supported by robust evidence and research. They require our most urgent attention! We will address what we are calling “a living model” for childhood which aims to reconsider the basic essentials that must be present for children to actively thrive. As far back as 1943, the American psychologist Abraham Maslow, in a paper called “A Theory of Human Motivation” stressed the importance of meeting the physiological needs of human survival above all else – the needs that are common to humanity at all levels and in all conditions. He argued that if such needs are not met, the human mind and body will not be able to function properly.”

https://www.communityplaythings.co.uk/learning-library/articles/living-model?srsltid=AfmBOooGkHWifi2hJvWS_udmEmPCF3WFdbI5FFQsqhn64ySWvHiKDWo2

Remember - Hamas is not going to be in control of Gaza going forward.

@SharonEllis - you don’t need to live and breathe Gaza to be concerned about what is happening there and to know it is clearly looking like genocide. Even the right wing press is now repeatedly raising concerns. I read even Fox News is questioning what is going on in Gaza. You can’t miss it.

You are completely missing the point!

@Twiglets1 Am I correct that you mentioned you are/were a teacher, how old do you reckon the children in that clip are?

To me they seem like maybe KS3.

I'm sure I've been told on these threads that hamas say they stopped the use of child soldiers 20 years ago, surely hamas wouldn't lie!

Graduates of the Israeli education system join a military that is hell bent on destroying Palestinians and regularly film themselves making comments that dehumanise that group. Who is actually being radicalised? Listen to the rhetoric of Israeli youths, so convinced in their views that they film themselves saying Palestinians should be erased!

Peled-Elhanan, a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, studied the content of Israeli school books, and wrote about it in her book, Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education. She describes what she found as a racism that prepares young Israelis for their compulsory military service.

"But, she says, they are never referred to as Palestinians unless the context is terrorism.
They are called Arabs. The Arab with a camel, in an Ali Baba dress. They describe them as vile and deviant and criminal, people who don't pay taxes, people who live off the state, people who don't want to develop," she says. "The only representation is as refugees, primitive farmers and terrorists. You never see a Palestinian child or doctor or teacher or engineer or modern farmer."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/aug/07/israeli-school-racism-claim

Honestly that is awful indoctrination - most of the kids are 15 or so, some younger. The rhetoric of that one kid is racist and wrong - I think everyone on the board have agreed that Hamas are bad, they indoctrinate but we have also argued that it is easier to indoctrinate young children who have had their families brutally murdered as that level of trauma actually damages the developing brain and its capacity for empathy.

In saying that you need to look at numbers to put it into context - Hamas had approximately 30,000 militants out of a population of over 2million - you can not say the entire population has been radicalised because some members of Hamas send their kids to these military camps. This is a small number of young people!

In Israel many young people attend Gadna, a week-long Youth Corps course run by the IDF. They train teens from 14-18 at this pre-military camp. After 18 the majority of Israelis then complete military service in the IDF - a huge amount more than the approximately 1.5% of Palestinians in Gaza who serve in Hamas.

My brother was in the Irish army reserves as a teen, never joined the army (we’re neutral anyway) but wanted to learn how to do all the stuff. Going to a training camp does not make someone active in the army - participation in military activities does!

Shock - Hamas lying, who would have guessed?

I've not worked as a teacher but I have worked in schools on the pastoral side. I agree these children look to be KS3 age - maybe 13 or 14 - a highly impressionable age.

maybe you’re missing my point?

Probably. I didn't read past the first para as it didn't relate to my post so I've no idea what your subsequent point was.

Criticisms of UNRWA or Hamas’ influence cannot erase or excuse the war crimes being committed in Gaza.

Do you honestly think Israel’s current actions are reducing Hamas recruitment, or are they likely making it worse by devastating communities and killing (at least) tens of thousands of civilians, including children?

This > “It’s always important to consider bias.”

Followed by this > “…an UN commissioned independent report…”

Is somewhat humorous…

Hopefully Hamas will not be in power any longer.

I am also not sure what the point is speaking about a biased report on Hamas’s prior influence on educational system when they will no longer be in power to influence it! And there are much more pressing concerns about the needs of Palestinian children.

There clearly needs to be work done on indoctrination on both sides. Whist there will be a way to influence this in a future Palestinian state, with careful planning of a postwar future for Gaza- if we get this far. But what to about Israel’s dehumanisation of Palestinians?

This is not helped by reporting of the conflict in Israel- apparently:

https://theconversation.com/israelis-have-a-skewed-view-on-extent-of-gazas-hunger-plight-driven-by-censorship-and-media-that-downplay-humanitarian-crisis-257201

It is so easy to find videos of the Gaza education system and what it teaches. There really is no need for wide-eyed disbelief.

Maybe Israel should stop offering a two state school system then. Might help?

Also very easy to find Israeli children chanting about exterminating Palestine. How horrible to use children in such a way.

The “report” quoted in the OP reads like a Fox News or NOTW shock horror article, not a serious account.

Sorry you don’t find the findings serious - I do and I’m glad some others do too.

Me too. Personally I don't watch Fox and never read NOTW but each to their own.

UNWRA is responsible for the education system in Gaza.

It’s run by the UN, not Israel.

“The 20,000 children that were killed in Palestine, is that justified”
“Yeah cause they’re going to grow up to be Hamas, I learned it in Torah class”

And that, my friends, is indoctrination in the education system.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/172LnktzSS/

Oh god it's that guy again. The man who gets his jollies shouting at random Israeli teenagers online and editing in to a click baity video that somehow "proves" how evil Israeli society is. He really needs to get a new hobby.

I do question their findings especially the claims relating to “textbooks for online schools post 7/10” as we know all the schools have been closed since 7/10.

Did they provide any evidence to back this up? Copies of the “online textbooks” that “celebrate 7/10”?

How?! When Israel has not allowed any independent journalists into the strip and has been bombing schools flat rather than videoing nonexistent classes since 7/10?

And where is their evidence that school teachers and principals were employees of UNWRA and Hamas? And why didn’t the Israeli Intelligence flag Hamas links to UNWRA when they did the pre-employment and semi-annual security checks of these employees?

That’s a lot of questions!

The videos I was referring to were made prior to Oct 7 so UNRWA’s systematic failure to provide the children of Gaza with an adequate education has been going on for years.

Don’t know about the rest so not prepared to definitively comment on it so I defer to your apparent knowledge. Did UNWRA, and by that I mean external UN employees, not ever check on what was being taught? I’d find that a bit odd. I get you appear to blame Israel for not ensuring the UN were employing non-terrorists, but surely the UN would have something in place to make sure that didn’t happen? I get that there’s more UN employees in Gaza than the rest of the combined international UN payroll so it might be a bit tricky, but you’d think there would be some sort of auditing or checks to make sure that things are being run efficiently and for the benefit of the Gazan people. Right? I mean, they’re responsible for facilitating aid, education, healthcare etc so they must check it’s being done properly? You’d want the one organisation charged with helping Gazans to be doing a good job?

Care to share the videos? And evidence it was still going on?

Yes the UN has both internal and external independent audits done annually on every organisation within it.

Yes the UN process agreed on with Israel since 2014 is that all UNWRA employees must be vetted by Israeli intelligence before employment and every six months while employed as a security clearance precaution to ensure no Hamas in the schools. For Israel to now claim that UNWRA “allowed” Hamas to serve as teachers and principals in schools for years seems disingenuous. If the security checks failed to flag Hamas, then Israel is at least partially responsible since it took over that aspect in 2014. UNWRA is responsible for sending lists of employees names, background and biometrics to Israel. Now if UNWRA failed to do this, the UNWRA would be responsible. There should obviously be an investigation done and if these allegations are true and the security process tightened up.