After Knesset Bans UNRWA for Terrorist Ties, Israel Offers Another Solution for Gaza

JERUSALEM, Israel – Since October 7th, 2023, the world has come to see the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in a new light. The evidence of its direct collaboration with terror groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad raises the question: if UNRWA were to be dismantled entirely, who would do the work?

The site at a bomb shelter on the Gaza perimeter has been called a massacre within a massacre. That day, on October 7th, Hamas terrorists murdered 16 Israelis hiding in the bomb shelter after fleeing the Nova Music Festival. They also kidnaped several others, including Israeli American Hirsh Goldberg-Polin. In addition to being with Hamas, the man leading that part of the massacre had another job – working for UNRWA.

IDF Chief Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari explained, "Mohammed Abu Itiwi was a Nukhba commander in the El Bureij Battalion of Hamas's central camp's brigade. He has also been employed by UNRWA since July 2022."

Israel's Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Immigration Amichai Chikili told CBN News, "You have employees of UNRWA who were leading the massacre."

A report from Chikili documents those employees who took part in the October 7th massacre. He told us Hamas' infiltration of the agency has been widespread.

"The entire system – because Hamas is in power – so, if you want to be an UNRWA employee with a very nice salary, you must be related to Hamas," Chikili explained.

He added, "So UNRWA employees in Gaza were mainly all Hamas militants or Hamas civil organizations' personnel, or the families of Hamas militants and members. If you're not connected to Hamas directly or indirectly, you cannot work in UNRWA in Gaza."

Evidence of this relationship is why the Knesset recently overwhelmingly passed a law that Israel divorce itself from UNRWA.

Boaz Bismuth, a Likud member of the Knesset, declared, "Just understand again the spirit of the bill. We have nothing against the international community, against foreigners, against the idea of humanitarian aid. This is what Israel is providing. It's about the fact that UNRWA participated in the massacre on the 7th of October."

After the vote, UNRWA claimed the law would be disastrous.

UNRWA director Philippe Lazzarini complained, "Today, millions of Palestinian refugees fear that the public services on which their lives depend will soon disappear. They fear that the children will be deprived of education, that illnesses will go untreated, and that social support will stop. 17,000 UNRWA personnel in the occupied Palestinian territory fear that they will lose their employment. The entire population of Gaza fears that their only remaining lifeline will be cut."

Bismuth, who co-authored the Knesset legislation, disputes those claims.

"There will not be a vacuum because, just because they (UNRWA) were helping yesterday, doesn't mean someone else cannot do the job tomorrow," Bismuth countered. "The job will be done, because I will ask you the same thing in Gaza. You can tell me, you know, Hamas is reigning in Gaza. I mean, you kick them away so who will control? Someone else. It's as easy as that, and it will be found. Other people can do it and will do it – and will do it beautifully – without being (a) terrorist."

Chikili's report cites how UNRWA has perpetuated the Palestinian refugee problem for generations.

"The fact that we have an entity solely for Palestinian refugees that can inherit (this) status to their kids, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, creating more and more refugees every year. And then you have the rest of the world, UNHCR (U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees) entity, that is for any other refugees in Africa or Asia, or Haiti – it doesn't matter," Chikili explained.

Another Solution for Gaza?

His report contrasts UNRWA and the UNHCR overseeing 5.9 million refugees. UNRWA employed 30,000 workers in 2023. That same year UNHCR employed 18,000 while overseeing 59 million refugees worldwide. Chikili says the difference goes even deeper.

"The UNHCR is not an ideological entity related with the war against the State of Israel, and UNRWA is part of a war. It's a war machine; (It) was designated to train the Palestinian younger generation for jihad. That is the reality. And also, when you go physically, and you go and you see in schools of UNRWA, in so many cases beneath the schools you have tunnels, within the schools you have ammunitions and missiles and weapons," Bismuth said.

It's why many in Israel want UNRWA abolished and support UNHCR to take its place. But, in a statement, UNHCR told CBN news:

"As we, with other U.N. agencies have previously warned, UNRWA is the only entity with the capacity to deliver the scale and breadth of assistance that 2.2 million people in Gaza, and millions of other Palestinians in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan need. As the U.N. secretary-general has stated, there is no alternative to UMWRA."

Yet, critics cite that UNRWA's most lasting and infamous legacy is its education system. Many principals of UNRWA schools in Gaza were also Hamas members. ChIkilI says it takes a village to raise a terrorist, and that UNRWA helped teach a genocidal ideology.

"This is the Palestinian ideology. It is UNRWA's ideology," Chikili insisted. "And, by the way, is also very, very important to understand the jihadist ideology to train the kids to hate – anti-Semitism – to teach them that the war against the Jews and killing the Jews, that is the most important thing on earth. And this is also a part of what we saw on October 7th."

Under the Biden administration in 2023, the U.S. became UNRWA's largest donor. In Donald Trump's first administration, he ended the agency's funding. Most here hope, that when he takes office in January, he will act quickly to do so again.

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