UNRWA schools ‘hijacked by Hamas,’ - watchdog report
A leading independent watchdog organization released a report this week detailing how the Hamas terrorist movement took control of the education system in Gaza and Lebanon from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), News.Az reports citing foreign media.
The watchdog group — UN Watch — titled its 220-page report "Schools in the Grip of Terror: How UNRWA Allowed Hamas Chiefs to Control Its Education System."
According to the report, "These case studies show in detail how Hamas has hijacked UNRWA’s education through its domination of the local UNRWA staff unions, particularly the teachers’ sectors of the unions, enabling Hamas to control UNRWA schools — the physical facilities, teachers, and curriculum — including by preventing the agency from implementing changes to de-radicalize the curriculum, blocking efforts by UNRWA to discipline staff for inciting antisemitism and jihadi terrorism, and placing Hamas operatives in senior educator positions in schools."
A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital, "The Administration has determined UNRWA is irredeemably compromised and now seeks its full dismantlement along with the return of remaining unspent funds. Other U.N. agencies and other more effective international partners are more than capable of stepping in to provide essential lines of support.
"As stated in President Trump’s February 4 Executive Order regarding ending funding or reviewing support for certain U.N. and international organizations, 'UNRWA has reportedly been infiltrated by members of groups long designated by the Secretary of State (Secretary) as foreign terrorist organizations, and UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel."’
The spokesperson concluded, "President Trump and Secretary Rubio have long stated that Hamas will never govern Gaza again. That includes institutions they have infiltrated to sustain their power and influence."
Telling examples of Hamas control over UNRWA’s education system are, according to UN Watch, the expulsion of Matthias Schmale, a senior member of UNRWA’s international staff who headed the agency’s Gaza operation in 2021 because he issued an apparent pro-Israel remark in a media interview.
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