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Watchdog Identifies UN Agency Staff Who Participated in Oct. 7 Hamas Massacre
An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of an attack following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip lying on the ground in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
Two teachers hired by the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees participated in Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, according to new research published by an Israeli watchdog group.
The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) on Wednesday unveiled transcriptions of recordings confirming the roles of Yusef Zidan Sliman Al-Hawajri and Mamdouh Hussein Ahmad Al-Qek in the Hamas atrocities. Both teachers worked for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) — the global organization’s agency dedicated solely to the refugees and descendants of Palestinians who fled during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.
“We have female hostages, I captured one,” Al-Hawarji, who is both an Arabic teacher at the UNRWA-funded Deir al-Balah Boys’ Elementary School and a member of the Hamas Central Campus Brigade, can be heard saying in recordings obtained by IMPACT-se. “We will enter Al-Aqsa Mosque … they did actions for liberations [sic], God willing.”
Al-Hawarji also specifically alluded to kidnapping a “sabaya,” a term jihadists use to describe sex slaves.
In a separate recording quoted by the watchdog group, Al-Qek — another UNRWA elementary school teacher and a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) Rafah Brigade — celebrated infiltrating Israeli territory during a phone call to family members, saying, “I’m inside! I’m with the Jews.”
PIJ, like Hamas, is an Islamist terrorist group based in Gaza committed to the destruction of Israel and the death of Jews. Its fighters participated in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre, in which 1,200 people were murdered across southern Israel and about 240 others were kidnapped as hostages.
Both UNRWA teachers used their classrooms as platforms for promoting antisemitism and terrorism, according to Impact-se.
“This comes as no surprise, given that they worked in schools which routinely glorify jihad and incite violence,” Impact-se CEO Marcus Sheff said in a statement. “That Al-Hawarji and Al-Qek were employed by UNWRA, supported by international community funds, underscores the imperative that UNRWA is beyond salvation and can play no further role in Palestinian education.”
The new findings came after Impact-se released a separate report in November revealing that at least 14 teachers at UNRWA-run schools had praised the Oct. 7 pogrom carried out in southern Israel.
Complaints that UNRWA is promoting antisemitism and terrorism are not new.
Antisemitic and violent themes taught in Palestinian schools administered by UNRWA, as well as their employment of teachers linked to terrorist organizations, helped to inspire the extremism which resulted in Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, experts told a US congressional subcommittee in January.
During the hearing, Sheff noted that “at least” 100 members of Hamas who have perpetrated previous acts of terrorism were schooled in UNRWA operated facilities and estimated that a majority of Hamas terrorists who participated in the Oct. 7 massacre were as well.
Antisemitic incitement and violence in Palestinian curricula has persisted despite years of outrage and international pressure to change the teaching materials. Study cards for 11th graders accusing Jews of being “in control of global events through financial power,” seventh graders instructed to describe Israeli soldiers as “Satan’s aides” in a textbook chapter imploring Muslims to “liberate” the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and children gathered to listen to a poem with the following line: “Give me a Kalashnikov, an [M-] 14, an axe and a knife” are just some of the examples of the themes to which Palestinian students have been exposed, according to numerous Impact-se reports.
In November, the US House of Representatives passed legislation that would require the US secretary of state to report annually on whether teaching materials provided to Palestinian students is promoting antisemitism and hatred of Israel. The bill now awaits consideration by the US Senate.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Watchdog Identifies UN Agency Staff Who Participated in Oct. 7 Hamas Massacre first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US House Appropriations Bill Seeks to Strip Funding From Universities That Don’t Crack Down on Antisemitism
Pro-Hamas demonstrators at Columbia University in New York City, US, April 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
The US House Appropriations Committee this week unveiled a major education funding bill with a new requirement aimed at incentivizing colleges and universities to adopt and enforce prohibitions on antisemitic conduct or risk losing federal funding.
The measure, spelled out in Section 536 of the fiscal year 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations bill, would prohibit institutions of higher education from receiving federal funds “unless and until such institution adopts a prohibition on antisemitic conduct that creates a hostile environment in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in all documents relating to student or employee conduct.” It would further bar funding to schools that fail to take action against students, staff, or organizations that engage in antisemitism on campus.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in any program or activity receiving federal funding.
The proposed funding bill would also cut $49 million for the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in 2026. The office has been the key body investigating allegations of antisemitic discrimination on college campuses.
The new language was released amid mounting bipartisan pressure on universities to take campus antisemitism far more seriously. Just last week, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman and Republican Sen. Dave McCormick, both from Pennsylvania, sent pointed letters to the leaders of Penn State, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh, Temple University, and Lehigh University.
In their Aug. 28 letters, the senators warned that antisemitism on campus has escalated to a point that Jewish students feel unsafe and unprotected. They urged administrators to adopt a more vigorous stance against antisemitism, writing that “no student should feel like they must risk their safety to exercise their First Amendment rights to peacefully assemble and freely practice their religion.” The letters requested that the universities “work with your campus’s Jewish institutions and ensure all students, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or shared ancestry, are safe and able to fully participate in campus life.”
Antisemitism on university campuses exploded in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza. However, the Trump administration’s crackdown on universities, including the suspension of federal funding, to more forcibly punish antisemitic conduct has led some schools to reach settlements with the federal government to pledge more resources to combating antisemitism.
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A ‘Ceasefire’ That Leaves Hamas in Power Is Disastrous for Palestinians and Israelis
A Palestinian Hamas terrorist shakes hands with a child as they stand guard as people gather on the day of the handover of Israeli hostages, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Calls for an “immediate end” to the October 7th war in Gaza may sound compassionate. But in practice, they are neither pro-peace nor pro-Palestinian.
They are, in effect, demands that Hamas survive to reconstitute itself as Gaza’s governing power. And if history has taught us anything, nothing could be more anti-Palestinian, anti-recovery, or pro-perpetual war than such an outcome.
Hamas Is Gaza’s Captor, Not Its Voice
Hamas is not Gaza. Hamas is not the Palestinian Arab people. It is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, and its goal is certainly not a Palestinian Arab state, but a global Islamic caliphate. A Palestinian state is only a means to that end.
For 18 years, Hamas has ruled Gaza not as a government, but as a theocratic war machine. Its charter calls for the extermination of Jews. Its leaders openly glorify martyrdom and war. Billions in aid were funneled away from hospitals and schools to build approximately 750 kilometers of fortified tunnels—military bunkers for fighters, not shelters for civilians. Ordinary Gazans never protected; used instead as human shields.
Under Hamas, generation after generation of Gazan children have been raised on a steady diet of hate, jihad, and martyrdom. To leave Hamas in power is not to liberate Gaza, but to guarantee that the cycle of indoctrination, violence, and terror continues — and that another October 7th is only a matter of time.
Ceasefire as Perpetual War
The world has seen this movie before. After every round of fighting — 2009, 2012, 2014, 2021 — the “international community” pressed Israel into premature ceasefires. Each time, Hamas rearmed, retrenched, and plotted the next round.
October 7, 2023, was not an aberration; it was the natural product of this cycle.
That is why today’s calls for a “ceasefire” are not pro-peace. They are demands for Hamas to survive long enough to start the war again.
Britain’s Perverse “Incentive”
Britain recently threatened to recognize a Palestinian state if there is not a ceasefire that leaves Hamas intact. On its face, this might sound like diplomacy. In reality, it is perverse. It sends Hamas a simple message: terrorism pays. Massacre civilians, hide behind hospitals and schools, and the West will reward you.
Such recognition will not advance the creation of the first Palestinian Arab state or make Palestinian lives better. It will, however, make that state less likely than ever by cementing Hamas and its brand of Islamist rejectionism as Gaza’s unavoidable power.
No viable Palestinian state can emerge from a Gaza ruled by Hamas and a culture held hostage to its murderous ideology.
Western Protestors’ Blind Spot
The irony is that the very Western activists chanting “ceasefire now” in London, New York, and Paris — those who imagine themselves champions of peace — are objectively, de facto pro-Hamas.
Whether they realize it or not, their banners translate into “Hamas must survive.” And if Hamas survives, endless war is inevitable –because Hamas’s central purpose is Israel’s destruction. Every chant for “ceasefire now” while Hamas remains intact is a chant for more Israeli deaths and more Palestinian Arab misery.
They are not pro-peace. They are pro-perpetual war.
Who Actually Loses When Hamas Survives
Those demanding an end to the war with Hamas intact claim to care about civilians. But preserving Hamas ensures:
- No real reconstruction, because Hamas steals cement for terror tunnels and fuel for rockets.
- No freedom, because Hamas rules by repression, executions, and censorship.
- No future, because Hamas indoctrinates Gaza’s children for violent jihad, not life.
Keeping Hamas in power is not pro-Palestinian. It is anti-Palestinian. It guarantees that Gaza’s children will inherit only tunnels, wars, and funerals.
A Century of Rejectionism
Since at least the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, this conflict has not been about borders. It has always been about the rejection of Jewish sovereignty anywhere in the land of Israel. When Jews accepted partition in 1937 and again in 1947, Arab leaders said no. Their problem was not lines on a map but Jews exercising sovereignty anywhere whatsoever in their homeland. The atrocities of October 7 echoed the massacres of Jews that Palestinian Arab leaders incited in 1920, 1921, 1929, and 1936.
This unbroken chain of rejectionism has condemned Palestinian Arabs to statelessness and war for generations. And now Britain, and Western protestors, seek to reward it.
If one genuinely wants peace, ask: who should shape Gaza’s future? The terrorists who turned mosques into arsenals, schools into rocket factories, and aid workers into shields? Or people who, without Hamas’ boot on their necks, might finally build homes, schools, and businesses not tied to terror?
The answer should be obvious. Yet Western protestors chanting “ceasefire now” have chosen the terrorists over the civilians.
If the world wants Gaza to truly rebuild, if it wants Palestinian children to inherit schools instead of terror tunnels, and if it wants Israelis and Palestinian Arabs ever to live in peace, then Hamas must be defeated. Only then will peace even be possible.
Micha Danzig is a current attorney, former IDF soldier & NYPD police officer. He currently writes for numerous publications on matters related to Israel, antisemitism & Jewish identity & is the immediate past President of StandWithUs in San Diego and a national board member of Herut.
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Director Julian Schnabel Rejects Calls to Disinvite Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler From Movie Premiere Over Israel Ties
In Venice, Italy, on Sept. 3, 2025, Julian Schnabel attends the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award 2025 and the ”In the Hand of Dante” red carpet during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival. Photo: Luca Carlino via Reuters Connect
Award-winning American filmmaker and artist Julian Schnabel rejected efforts by anti-Israel activists to disinvite Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler, stars of his new film “In the Hand of Dante,” from the 82nd Venice Film Festival because of their ties to Israel.
Before the festival started, anti-Israel activists under the banner Venice4Palestine released a statement urging festival organizers to withdraw invitations to Butler, Gadot, “and any artist and celebrity who publicly and actively supports the genocide.”
“We wonder how we can pay tribute to figures like Gerard Butler and Gal Gadot, protagonists of a film out of competition, who ideologically and materially support Israel’s political and military conduct?” they added.
Venice Film Festival Director Alberto Barbera confirmed that Butler and Gadot were not disinvited, but neither of them attended the festival this year.
Gadot is a native of Petah Tikva and former soldier in the Israel Defense Forces who has expressed avid support for her home country before and after the Hamas-led terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. She has been spending the summer in Israel and a representative for the actress said she “was never able nor was ever confirmed to attend the Venice Film Festival.”
Butler attended the Friends of the IDF Western Region Gala in Los Angeles in 2018, but has not made any public comments about Israel since the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
“I think there’s no reason to boycott artists,” Schnabel said on Wednesday afternoon at a press conference for “In the Hand of Dante,” before the film’s out of competition premiere that evening at the Venice Film Festival. He was responding to a question about boycott efforts by Venice4Palestine against Butler and Gadot. “I selected those actors for their merits as actors, and they did an extraordinary job in the film, and that’s about it,” he added. “I think we should talk about the movie rather than this issue.”
“In the Hand of Dante” is an adaptation of a novel of the same name by Nick Tosches. The film follows the story of a handwritten manuscript of Dante Alighieri’s poem “The Divine Comedy” and jumps between the 14th and 21st centuries. Oscar Isaac plays both Tosches and Dante. The film also stars Al Pacino, John Malkovich, Martin Scorsese, Jason Momoa, Sabrina Impacciatore, Louis Cancelmi, and Franco Nero.
The movie received a 9 1/2-minute ovation after its world premiere on Wednesday night at the festival. Schnabel also received Venice’s Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award on Wednesday night in a ceremony held before the premiere. The award is given to someone who has made a particularly original contribution to the contemporary film industry.
The 82nd Venice Film Festival runs from Aug. 27-Sept. 6.