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The UNRWA Meltdown
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 – If anything illuminates the insanity and moral bankruptcy of our times, it’s the reaction to Israel’s decision to act against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
Laws passed this week by the Israeli Knesset, which will come into force in three months’ time, ban UNRWA from operating in either Israel or Gaza, prohibit state officials from having any contact with the agency or its representatives, and enable Israel to arrest and prosecute any of its employees with terrorist connections.
The evidence is overwhelming that UNRWA is indeed an active partner of Hamas.
Israel has claimed that dozens of UNRWA officials and staffers directly participated in last year’s Oct. 7 pogrom in southern Israel, when 1,200 were murdered and more than 250 kidnapped into Gaza.
Mohammad Abu Itiwi, who led the murder and kidnapping of Israelis hiding in a roadside bomb shelter on that terrible day, and who was killed by the Israel Defense Forces last week in Gaza, had been employed by UNRWA since July 2022 while serving as a Nukbha commander in Hamas’s Bureij Battalion.
Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, who led Hamas in Lebanon and was killed in an Israeli airstrike there in September, doubled as the head of Lebanon’s UNRWA teachers’ union. A school principal, he oversaw 65 schools and roughly 40,000 students. He had also been responsible for coordinating terror activities between Hamas and Hezbollah; procuring weapons and recruiting terrorists; and using social media to incite attacks.
The IDF repeatedly discovered terrorist infrastructure sited in and around UNRWA schools, hospitals and other facilities. Back in February, Israeli forces found below UNRWA’s headquarters in Gaza City a subterranean data center that was hooked up to the electricity supply in the UNRWA facility above.
According to the curricula monitoring organization IMPACT-se, UNRWA’s school curriculum has had a “central, radicalizing influence on generations of Palestinians” and teaches children that the Jews are liars and fraudsters” who “spread corruption.”
Despite all this and more such evidence of UNRWA’s terrorist ties, there has been hysterical outrage over Israel’s ban. There have been claims that it will deepen the humanitarian crisis with Gazans now on the brink of starvation—a claim that’s been made repeatedly during the war but has always proved untrue.
In reality, hundreds of aid trucks enter Gaza every week, but Hamas continues to steal the aid and sell it on the black market at hugely inflated prices that Gaza residents cannot afford. Hamas has seized an estimated $500 million in foreign aid since the war began.
Most of the assistance coming in isn’t even being distributed by UNRWA. Israeli officials have said that aid agencies such as the World Food Program, World Central Kitchen and UNICEF have a bigger role in distributing Gaza’s aid supplies.
None of this is acknowledged by those claiming that the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza are starving and UNRWA is irreplaceable. Other aid agencies, they say, don’t provide health and education services.
But UNRWA’s schools have taught generations of Gaza’s children to hate and murder Jews. According to the IDF, every single UNRWA hospital and clinic has been used as a terrorist hub, with clinical staff doubling as Hamas members.
In any civilized universe, how can such a provision be deemed “irreplaceable”? Shouldn’t the appropriate response to the organization that has facilitated such terrorist assistance be to shut it down?
Moreover, why should Israel be held responsible for providing Gaza with humanitarian assistance? Israel has been under bombardment from the coastal enclave for two decades. Gaza’s population elected Hamas to rule them. Opinion polling consistently reveals that even among those who now hate Hamas, the vast majority support the killing of Israelis.
Thousands of those civilians took part in the Oct. 7 atrocities in Israel and grossly abused the Israeli captives when they were dragged into Gaza. The IDF subsequently found evidence of ties to Hamas in virtually every house.
In what conceivable moral universe is a country targeted for such a remorseless and genocidal attack expected to look after the welfare of its murderous attackers?
The United Nations says that Jerusalem has an obligation under international law to provide humanitarian assistance in Gaza because Israel is the occupying power. But this is totally untrue. Israel is not occupying Gaza. It withdrew from it altogether in 2005.
It’s the United Nations that has failed to live up to its own international obligation not to fund and support violence. For years, the world body has turned a blind eye to UNRWA’s ties to terrorists. So have America, Britain and other countries. They still refuse to acknowledge this problem.
In a statement this week expressing “grave concern” over the Israeli ban, the foreign ministers of Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom claimed that UNRWA was tackling its employees’ support for terrorism by pursuing the recommendations made in last April’s independent review by the former French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna.
That review was a travesty. Before the report was even written, Colonna said that her goal was to “enable donors … to regain confidence, when they have lost it or when they have doubts, in the way UNRWA operates.” Her report was drafted to achieve precisely that rather than stop the rot.
Far from tackling the agency’s terrorist ties, its commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, has batted them away. He claimed implausibly that UNRWA didn’t know about the Hamas data center underneath its Gaza headquarters.
He denied that it employed terrorists and said this claim was part of a “large-scale campaign aimed at undermining the agency.” Having suspended the teachers’ union head Abu el Amin under pressure over the revelation of his Hamas role, Lazzarini reinstated him three months later under pressure of a strike by UNRWA teachers supporting their union’s head.
As for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, he appeared to blame Israel for the Hamas Oct. 7 pogrom by saying it “did not happen in a vacuum” and has repeatedly parroted Hamas talking points.
Instead of holding the U.N.’s and UNRWA’s feet to the fire, Israel’s supposed allies in America and Britain have been threatening to cut off the Jewish state at the knees.
Having told Israel earlier this month that it must take steps within 30 days to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face potential restrictions on US military aid, the Biden-Harris administration threatened it with “consequences under U.S. law and US policy” over its UNRWA ban.
In Britain, there have been reports that the government may suspend further arms sales to Israel as punishment. The U.K. ambassador to the United Nations, Dame Barbara Woodward, said that Israel must “ensure UNRWA can continue to provide essential services to those suffering in Gaza and the West Bank.”
But UNRWA’s role is not as a dispassionate provider of essential services. It was actually created in 1949 as a weapon to delegitimize the State of Israel. While refugee status for all other peoples is considered a temporary measure, it’s permanent for the Palestinian Arabs. Under UNRWA’s unique designation, it’s passed down from generation to generation.
That’s why the number of Palestinian Arab “refugees” has ludicrously increased from 700,000 in 1948 to 5.9 million today—an ever-growing running sore whose toxicity is vastly increased by the hatred of Israel taught in UNRWA schools.
The pretense that UNRWA exists to provide for the suffering was finally ripped apart by the part its employees played in the Oct. 7 atrocities and in the war that has followed.
Israelis are no longer prepared to tolerate people who are trying to kill them and destroy their country while parading as humanitarian relief workers. Yet the United States, Britain and the United Nations are pressuring Israel to continue to keep this malign farce going.
Such people aren’t appalled by UNRWA. They’re appalled by the ban on it. That tells you everything you need to know about the war against Israel by the so-called civilized world.
The post The UNRWA Meltdown first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Targets Iran-Backed Hezbollah With New Sanctions, Treasury Departments Says
A man gestures the victory sign as he holds a Hezbollah flag, on the second day of the ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah, in Tyre, southern Lebanon, Nov. 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
The United States targeted two senior Hezbollah officials and two financial facilitators with new sanctions on Thursday for their role in coordinating financial transfers to the Iran–backed terrorist group, the Treasury Department said.
The latest sanctions come as President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States was getting very close to securing a nuclear deal with Iran, and Tehran had “sort of” agreed to the terms.
The people targeted were based in Lebanon and Iran and worked to get money to Hezbollah from overseas donors, the department said in a statement.
Treasury said overseas donations make up a significant portion of the Islamist group’s budget.
Thursday’s action highlights Hezbollah‘s “extensive global reach through its network of terrorist donors and supporters, particularly in Tehran,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Michael Faulkender.
“As part of our ongoing efforts to address Iran’s support for terrorism, Treasury will continue to intensify economic pressure on the key individuals in the Iranian regime and its proxies who enable these deadly activities.”
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An Iowa Children’s Library Event Was Used to Push an Anti-Israel Agenda
Schaeffer Hall, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. Photo: Flickr.
“Your teacher needs teaching.” This quote appalled me because, although challenging ideas is crucial to democratic values, it’s dangerous to assume your perspective is the definitive truth.
When I saw that the University of Iowa’s Arabic Department was promoting a “Palestine Storytime and Craft” in the Iowa City Public Library (ICPL)’s Children’s Room, I was curious about what it would convey, especially as someone who has worked with children for almost a decade, was employed in my hometown library’s children’s department, and participated avidly in those programs growing up.
The comment sections on ICPL’s Instagram and Facebook pages were flooded with support and comments like “love this.”
The event was cosponsored by Iowans for Palestine (IFP) and a local activist.
Besides spreading misleading information at their weekly protests and campus events, IFP has worked on a piece with Al Jazeera, which Israel and others have repeatedly accused of bias. Additionally, IFP has promoted multiple fundraisers raising thousands of dollars for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, which has been accused by watchdogs of funneling money to Hamas.
In October 2024, a pro-Palestinian community member spoke at an Iowa City School Board meeting, where she declared, “How much time has been given in schools to understand the Indigenous People’s struggle for liberation from their occupiers or colonizers? All the while, an act of genocide is happening right now against the indigenous Palestinian people. The education system has been used before to hide or ignore the truth, lie or mislead against the many atrocities indigenous people have faced … The abuse of education risks leading people to dehumanize an already embattled indigenous population … Standing against colonialism and apartheid is to stand with truth to power.”
This same activist took on the role of storyteller for the library event. She first read My Olive Tree by Hazar Elbayya, recognized as a Booklist Best Book of the Year, followed by A Map for Falasteen, written by Maysa Odeh and illustrated by Aliaa Betawi, which has received multiple honors, including Kirkus Best Book of 2024 and Booklist Editors’ Choice 2024.
The presenter repeatedly emphasized that the one thing she wanted everyone to focus on was the adults’ attire in the stories. She encouraged them to compare it to what she was wearing: a black and white keffiyeh.
In My Olive Tree, Hazar Elbayya portrays Israel as the villain through the eyes of a young girl who dreams of growing an olive tree, a cherished symbol of peace in her community, while soldiers are described as “forcefully march[ing] into our land and destroy[ing] everything in their path.”
A Map for Falasteen opens with a young girl struggling to find her family’s homeland on a map, while her classmates confidently share their own stories. When she asks why “Palestine” isn’t shown, her teacher dismissively suggests it may not exist, prompting the girl to turn to her family in search of answers. After reading the first page, the community member said to the audience, “It’s not actually on the map — it exists, but it’s not on the map.”
In the story, the girl’s grandpa draws a map of “Palestine” and says, “Your teacher needs teaching. You can show this to her, so all of your friends can learn too.”
It was not hard at all to spot the keffiyehs, watermelons, and Palestinian flags throughout the books.
After she was finished reading, the organizer took the keffiyeh off her neck to show the children and their families. She said the pattern resembling a fishing net is a tribute to Palestinian fishermen. Another pattern, with squiggly lines, symbolizes olive leaves, which she described as an essential part of Palestinian culture. According to her, the straight lines represent the borders between the cities and villages of Palestine.
While the reader’s son — wearing a “Free Palestine” hoodie — and a few friends were notably engaged, the rest of the very young children seemed more interested in the craft portion of the event than the radical messaging.
It is a disheartening reality that many institutions, from college campuses to local libraries, are no longer prioritizing unbiased, meaningful education but instead are becoming platforms for harmful agendas.
This event is just one example of how young minds can be subtly influenced by radical messaging under the guise of innocent storytelling and community engagement.
As parents, educators, and responsible citizens, we must remain vigilant about what our children are exposed to. Just because a book has won awards does not mean it is objective, age-appropriate, or free from dangerous messaging.
It is our duty to ensure that young people are not preyed upon by pro-terrorist rhetoric or manipulated into adopting ideologies before they are old enough to critically assess them, especially when children are regularly weaponized by terrorists that try to appeal to them. Just look at how Hamas has used children to celebrate the deaths of babies held hostage — this is the destructive path that unchecked radicalization can lead to.
Jasmyn Jordan is a spring 2025 graduate of the University of Iowa, where she was a Presidential Scholar, double majoring in Political Science and International Relations with a minor in Journalism. She was a 2024–2025 CAMERA Fellow and organized a variety of pro-Israel initiatives, including bringing a speaker to campus. Her work has appeared in The College Fix, New Guard, and Breitbart, and she has been featured in interviews at the local, state, and national levels.
The post An Iowa Children’s Library Event Was Used to Push an Anti-Israel Agenda first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Killed a Terror Operative in Gaza, Not a Journalist
23-year-old German-Israeli Shani Louk, who was murdered by Hamas on October 7, 2023. (Photo: Instagram)
Calling a terror operative a journalist doesn’t make him one.
Just ask the Associated Press (AP). The vaunted news agency’s rough schooling in this lesson began with a mundane correspondence, progressed to the most devastating slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, and continued with a hugely embarrassing court case.
The first chapter of the unfortunate saga dates to 2018. At the time, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America questioned the AP’s reliance on photographer Hassan Eslaiah, identified in the wire service coverage as a “local journalist” who corroborated a Hamas accusation that Israel was responsible for the death of a child at the Gaza border fence.
When CAMERA requested specifics regarding Eslaiah’s journalistic credentials, an AP official declined to identify the Palestinian’s professional affiliation. The editor insisted that he “is independent and reliable and not Hamas.”
CAMERA did its own research, and in very short order discovered an Electronic Intifada article revealing that the “not Hamas” source was, at the time, a camera operator with the very much Hamas-affiliated Quds TV.
CAMERA shared this information with the AP. But the news agency, which says it its “advancing the power of facts,” failed to amend its coverage to acknowledge that the supposedly independent and reliable local journalist, who ostensibly substantiated an unverified Hamas claim, was himself working with Hamas.
Later, in 2020, CAMERA tweeted a photograph of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar kissing and embracing Eslaiah, and tagged the AP.
Fast forward to Oct. 7, 2023. By then, Eslaiah’s status at the AP had advanced. He was no longer a “local journalist” trotted out to verify Hamas’ questionable claims. He was now the wire service’s freelance photographer at the forefront of Hamas’ horrific massacre, earning cash for his images of the unspeakable terror carried out by his Hamas colleagues.
“Not Hamas” Eslaiah was among the freelance photographers from the Gaza Strip who crossed the border into Israel alongside thousands of Hamas-led terrorists who came to murder, rape, kidnap, torture, maim, and loot.
The most recent chapter of the AP’s hard knocks education in the mutually exclusive professions of journalism and terror moves from the killing fields of southern Israel to the Federal court of the Southern District of Florida.
As reported in The Times of Israel, terror victims sued the Associated Press in February 2024 for publishing Eslaiah’s Oct. 7 photographs, charging: “AP has long been on notice of their freelancer’s Hamas connections, and chose to ignore those connections.”
A recap: the AP was on notice because of CAMERA’s 2018 correspondence. The CAMERA-AP exchange stands at the foundation of the terror victim’s lawsuit against the leading news agency.
In those 2018 emails, dusted off in 2024 by studious lawyers who did their homework, CAMERA also documented that Eslaiah’s social media was a veritable reader’s guide to ideological identification with Hamas, glorification of terrorism, and anti-Jewish statements.
Even following Oct. 7, Eslaiah’s social media was as open as a textbook. A November 2023 CAMERA report documented Eslaiah’s celebration of the Oct. 7 atrocities, including praise for the Hamas “warriors” and reflections on how “storming the settlements” is a “beautiful thing.”
But Eslaiah’s identification with Hamas didn’t stop at lyrical posts. Last April, when Eslaiah was injured in an Israeli airstrike, the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet reported that Eslaiah was a member of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade and was operating “under the guise of a journalist and owner of a press company.”
When Hassan Eslaiah was killed in an Israeli air strike this week, Hamas rushed to claim that a journalist was among the three fatalities.
As the lawsuit against the AP is still ongoing, the final chapter of the AP’s Eslaiah Hamas-not-journalist curriculum has yet to be written. Nevertheless, the enduring lesson should be clear: a terror operative is not a journalist.
And yet, the slow learners are nothing if not consistent: “Gaza journalist Hassan Aslih killed in Israeli strike,” BBC blared. “Israeli strike on Gaza hospital kills wounded journalist,” Reuters misled.
Tamar Sternthal is director of the Israel office of CAMERA.
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