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Media Promote Bogus UN Report Claiming Hamas Has No Ties to UNRWA
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
JNS.org – NPR recently broadcast an article asserting the lie that Israel has been “spreading false information about UNRWA,” referencing the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian “refugees.” Yet, Israel has presented voluminous evidence that UNRWA is a front for the Hamas terror group.
In fact, it’s the UN that’s lying about UNRWA, and now its lies are being covered up by NPR and other mainstream media.
Indeed, back in April, The New York Times parroted the bogus claims of an “independent” review that exonerated UNRWA of having ties to Hamas, with the headline, “Israel Hasn’t Offered Evidence Tying Many U.N. Workers to Hamas, Review Says.”
Wrong.
The State of Israel has presented extensive lists of terrorists connected to UNWRA, as well as examples of overlapping funding, governance and facilities, indicating that UNRWA has been thoroughly infiltrated by Hamas operatives and loyalists. While this evidence was presented to UNRWA High Commissioner Phillipe Lazzarini, he and the review panel simply ignored it.
The review cited by both NPR and the NYT is highly suspect, since it was commissioned by U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who is operationally responsible for UNRWA activities. Guterres called UNRWA a “lifeline of hope and dignity”—lofty praise for an organization that has utterly failed for 75 years to help Palestinians rise above their dependent refugee status. To the contrary, the agency has cynically fostered and perpetuated Palestinian victimhood.
Most egregiously, the panel that conducted the probe on behalf of the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) lacked the mandate to investigate the presence of Hamas among its staff—which should have been the very subject of the investigation. In fact, by the UN’s own admission, the review was only designed to ease the concerns of donors. These two facts were somehow omitted by NPR, the NYT and other media.
Furthermore, the probe was led by a former French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, presenting another major conflict of interest, since Colonna approved French support of millions of euros for UNRWA. Also participating in the probe were three organizations whose executives have expressed extreme animosity towards Israel, accusing it of “genocide” and “apartheid.”
Despite these major flaws, following publication of the OIOS findings, the media were quick to absolve UNRWA and turn the tables by attacking Israel. Major media ran headlines such as “Report says Israel has not provided evidence of widespread militancy among UNRWA staff” (Washington Post) and “Israel has yet to provide evidence of Unrwa [sic] staff terrorist links, Colonna report says,” (The Guardian).
In truth, UNRWA and Hamas are virtually indistinguishable. No wonder Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein said that “Hamas has infiltrated UNRWA so deeply that it is no longer possible to determine where UNRWA ends and where Hamas begins.”
Guterres’s “probe” hides the complicity of UNRWA with Hamas.
According to UN spokesperson Chris Gunness, the investigation’s real purpose was to “provide the donors with further cover if that’s what they need within their own internal constituencies to resume funding for UNRWA.”
Indeed, Colonna, who headed the OIOS panel, said the purpose of the review was to “enable donors” to “regain confidence . . . in the way UNRWA operates.” In other words, the panel’s goal was to prove UNRWA’s innocence. So much for revealing the truth about terrorist infiltration.
Israel presented overwhelming evidence of UNRWA’s corruption and integration with Hamas.
This evidence included a list of 100 terror operatives employed by the agency, as well as intelligence indicating that over 10% of senior UNRWA educators in Gaza were members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
Israel also revealed proof that over 30 UNRWA facilities contained terrorist infrastructure, such as tunnel shafts powered by UNRWA electricity. Hamas even operated a high-end server farm directly under—and connected to—UNRWA’s Gaza headquarters. Lazzarini—and the media and the panel and donor countries—had this information, but all chose to suppress it.
The OIOS probe was fundamentally flawed from the outset.
It was designed to avoid exposing UNRWA’s corruption and staffed by those likely to support the collaboration of UNRWA and Hamas. For starters, the investigation was led by Colonna, who herself helped establish France as UNRWA’s fourth largest donor, also a founding board member of the UN agency.
The review also included organizations whose executives expressed extreme anti-Israel bias: the Michelsen Institute, whose senior staff and board members have accused Israel of “genocide” and “apartheid;” the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, whose executive director also accused Israel of apartheid; and the Danish Institute for Human Rights, whose communications director accused Israel of “illegally occupying” Palestine for 70 years.
The media lied and covered up the Hamas-UNRWA marriage.
The Washington Post, Reuters, The Guardian, NPR and The New York Times all joined the effort to hide UNRWA corruption. Their headlines claimed Israel provided no evidence of UNRWA’s ties to Hamas, when in fact the Israeli government provided massive evidence—and reporters were able to see much of it on the ground. In parroting the OIOS report’s false claims, these media again demonstrated despicable journalistic practices and outright bias against Israel.
The Washington Post said UNRWA “has mechanisms in place to prevent its facilities from being misused for political or military purposes.” Really? Then why are UNRWA facilities being used as terrorist bases?
The Associated Press even asserted that “Israel did not express concern about [UNRWA] staff.” Seriously? In fact, for years Israel has expressed outrage about Hamas’s infiltration of UNRWA’s ranks, but the media have refused to cover it.
Indeed, the media have every interest in hiding the reality that Hamas and UNRWA are virtually inseparable. This truth would destroy their newsrooms’ false narrative that the agency is a benevolent humanitarian organization, doing its best to serve desperate, needy Palestinian victims of Israel’s aggression.
Both the U.N. and the media are disguising the truth that Hamas and UNRWA are inextricably intertwined. They simply don’t want donor nations—and the public—to know the shameful truth. If citizens of donor countries, like the U.S., were to see proof that their tax dollars are funding barbaric terrorism, they would surely insist on slashing UNRWA’s funding.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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