Israel Under Fire – UNRWA: Humanitarian Terrorism?

Abstract

UNRWA is one of the largest UN programs today. Since its inception nearly seventy-five years ago, it has provided relief and humanitarian aid in one of the most complex geopolitical arenas in the world. Nevertheless, the Agency has attracted considerable criticism within the last few decades. Arguably, the Agency has become deeply involved in Middle Eastern politics in a way that might overshadow any substantive accomplishments. Recently, following the Israel-Hamas war that began following the events of October 7, 2023, UNRWA’s involvement with the Hamas terror organization became increasingly evident. It is, therefore, the appropriate time to consider the recent developments in UNRWA’s controversial practices and trends. This paper reviews the main areas of criticism regarding UNRWA’s actual performance and policies, as well as the legal-institutional and political factors that have combined to bring about the current situation, which calls, in particular, for awareness and action on the part of UNRWA’s donor countries.

1. Introduction

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has become one of the largest UN programs, with over 30,000 personnel operating in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. It remains the only UN agency whose area of operation is not global but regional, established to deal with a single group of people. It is also unique in directly providing government-like public services to its beneficiaries.

Since its inception nearly 75 years ago, UNRWA has undoubtedly provided relief and essential public services while operating in one of the most complex geopolitical arenas under the challenging conditions of political uncertainty and physical insecurity. Nevertheless, within the last few decades, it has attracted considerable criticism. Some of UNRWA’s long-standing policies have made it susceptible to political manipulation, particularly by extremist groups, in a way that might overshadow its accomplishments.

Recently, against the background of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, the criticisms regarding UNRWA intensified and included accusations, alongside evidence from the field, of “silent” support and even encouragement and active involvement in terrorist activity. In light of the above, the time has come to examine the controversial practices and trends that characterize the Agency’s activities. In this article, we will review the main areas of criticism of UNRWA’s policy and functioning, as well as the legal-institutional and political factors that have come together to bring about the current situation, which requires, first and foremost, to increase awareness alongside taking determined action from the countries that donate and fund the Agency’s activities.

2. An Active Political Actor

On June 20, 2013, on the occasion of World Refugee Day, Catherine Ashton, the then EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, decided to visit the Rimal Boys’ School in Gaza. Choosing a Gazan elementary school out of the numerous refugee facilities and camps scattered around the world was no coincidence. Hosted by Filippo Grandi, then Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Ashton made it clear that her visit was meant to “underline the situation in Gaza” and to support the work of UNRWA.1 She took that opportunity to share her wish to see the crossings opened. She declared that the EU would continue to be the strongest supporter, providing the required financial aid and “also the political support.”2 Clearly, Ashton’s visit was a significant achievement for UNRWA, resulting from an ongoing, intensive, world-embracing lobbying effort by the UN Agency’s leadership, tailored to attract international public attention to the political problem of Palestinian refugees.

The bloody conflict that broke out in Syria in March 2011 provided an excellent platform for the former UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Grandi to recall “the plight of Palestinian refugees, resulting in a 65-year-old diaspora.”3 In a written interview given by Grandi (March 2013), broadly spread by the UN News Center, he emphasized UNRWA’s endeavors to assist Palestinian refugees residing in Syria while expressing grave concerns that the situation in Syria might divert international attention away from the “ongoing Gaza blockade.”4 This very same point had been made earlier by Grandi at the Conference on Cooperation Among East Asian Countries for Palestinian Development, which was hosted by Japan, where he stated – alongside Salam Fayyad, the then-Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister – that Syria’s brutal war “should not make us forget that for Palestinian refugees, as for other Palestinians, the most powerful obstacle to development continues to be the Israeli occupation.”5 Grandi publicly condemned the “tightening grip” of Israeli policies, while presenting UNRWA as the “international political framework” that “strives to afford a measure of human development amidst the carefully structured and ever-expanding occupation,” calculated, according to Grandi, to “slowly but surely alienate Palestinians from their land and assets.”6

In November 2023, in an address at the joint summit of the League of Arab States (LAS) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, described the realities unfolding in Gaza and the dire humanitarian situation while emphasizing that Israel led to this situation: “The Israeli Forces have pushed over 1.5 million people out of the north of the Gaza Strip. More than 700,000 women, children, and men now live in UNRWA schools and shelters.” Lazzarini failed to mention Israel’s justification for the war following the massacre of Israeli citizens by the Hamas terror organization and residents of Gaza.7 Expressing the urgent need for humanitarian action, he called for a ceasefire, stressed the necessity of a political solution for millions facing life-threatening conditions, and emphasized again that “UNRWA is ready to do its part.”

In other statements delivered to the members of the UN Security Council and the Fourth Committee of the General Assembly, Philippe Lazzarini took the trouble, albeit in one short sentence, to state that “the massacres committed by Hamas on October 7th were shocking.” Still, immediately afterward, he noted the “shock of the unrestrained bombings of the Israeli forces,” without mentioning that the second event is a reaction to the first event.8 Lazzarini emphasized that the level of destruction is unprecedented, and includes attacks on churches, mosques, hospitals, and UNRWA facilities. He also clarified that half of the population of the Gaza Strip was displaced over three weeks, so in his view, what is being done in the Gaza Strip is a crime of “forced transfer” of a population. Lazzarini noted that close to 70% of the dead are children and women and that the number of children killed exceeds the total number of children killed in all conflicts in the world since 2019 every year. He also clarified that the data indicate violations of humanitarian law and cannot be “incidental damage. The crimes of Hamas,” he stressed, “do not absolve Israel of its obligations under humanitarian law […] the current absolute blockade of Gaza is a collective punishment, which is known to have extremely severe and far-reaching consequences.”

Lazzarini also emphasized that “the population of Gaza is over two million, half of them are children, all of them are vital, educated people, who aspire to live a normal life, a family life, raising children and dreaming of a better future,” but now they feel “that they have fallen into a war that is not theirs, and that the world compares them to Hamas. […] An entire population experiences dehumanization.” On top of that, he made it clear that the conflict in Gaza should not divert attention from other actions that Israel is doing outside the Strip: “The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is simmering with tension, as violence has reached unprecedented levels not seen in the last 15 years. Rising settler attacks and movement restrictions have displaced over 800 people in the West Bank since October 7th. The Israeli military is conducting daily incursions into refugee camps.”

These are only a few examples of the overriding, in-built anti-Israel orientation and motivation of the Agency as represented by the respective commissioners-general; they demonstrate the extent to which UNRWA has become an active player involved in Middle-Eastern politics and a powerful tool within the anti-Israel propaganda campaign. Nevertheless, this proficiency in translating humanitarian hardship into political gains has been only one cause of the growing body of criticism directed at UNRWA within the past few decades.9 UNRWA’s actual performance, which includes the breeding of an atmosphere of hatred and violence among Palestinian youth and even the support of terrorist activities, as well as the upholding of the concept of the “right of return” and the determined policy of inflating the number of refugees, have raised concern among experts, commentators, and statesmen alike – as will be exemplified in the forthcoming chapter.10

3. Manipulation of Facilities and Activities

3.1 Improper Use of Facilities

Over the years, there has been criticism regarding improper activities in UNRWA schools and summer camps. In 2000-2001, Palestinian children were reported to have received military training in summer camps that had been organized by the PA using UNRWA facilities.11 In 2001, during an awards ceremony held in a UNRWA facility by a Palestinian NGO, an Agency teacher was reported to have publicly praised suicide bombers; a speech by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who at the time was Hamas’ “spiritual” leader, followed.12 These incidents – the most prominent to come to light – were most likely the tip of the iceberg, given that out of the Agency’s 30,000 personnel, fewer than 150 are international staff. The remaining staff consists almost entirely of locals.13

Indeed, as the journalist Linda Polman acknowledged in her famous book, “The Crisis Caravan: What’s Wrong with Humanitarian Aid,” UNRWA camps have, in fact, introduced the world to the phenomenon now referred to as “refugee warriors”:

James Lindsay, UNRWA’s former Legal Advisor, also concluded in his in-depth 2009 report, “Fixing UNRWA,”15 that UNRWA makes no attempt to remove individuals who support extremist positions; the Agency has taken very few steps to detect and eliminate terrorists from its ranks while taking “no steps at all to prevent members of terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, from joining its staff.”16 Applicants in the West Bank and Gaza are thus exempt from pre-employment security checks, and the Agency does not check up on staff members to see what activities they are engaged in outside office hours.17

The fact that there are UNRWA staff members who support violence, terrorism, and extremist political philosophies does not seem to particularly bother UNRWA’s leadership, as was expressed by former Commissioner General Peter Hansen in 2004:

Moreover, even staff members who come from the refugee camp population who disagree with extremist views can hardly express any disagreement. As Lindsay observes, it is rare for staff members, especially in Gaza or the West Bank, to report or confirm that another staff member has violated rules against political speech, let alone exhibited ties to terrorism. Allegations of improper speech or misuse of UNRWA facilities, therefore, remain difficult to prove, as “virtually no one is willing to be a witness against gang members.”19 This is probably why hardly any incidents of improper use of language or power have come to light, not – as some commentators have presumed – that UNRWA has become more meticulous in screening for the use of its schools.20

This became more evident when video footage came to light, entitled “Camp Jihad,” showing the curriculum of Palestinian children in several UNRWA summer camps, which incited hostility towards Israel and the Jews.21 The documentary that filmed summer programs in the Gaza Strip and Balata refugee camp (north of Nablus) shows young campers being educated about the “Nakba”22 and taught about “the villages they came from,” such as Acre, Ashkelon, Beersheba, Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Nazareth, Safed, and even Tel-Aviv (Sheikh Munis) – all cities within sovereign Israel. Even the names of the teams in the summer camps take on the names of these cities. In the documentary, the director of the Gaza camp explains that these programs are meant to motivate the youngsters “to return to their original village,” and she expresses her deep gratitude to UNRWA for financing the camp. One scene shows a teacher telling a group of young students a story about the “wolf” – that is, the Jews, who brutally expelled their parents from their peaceful sea-side “palaces and villas.” Another teacher tells a group of young campers that “with education and jihad, we will return to our homes; we will wage war.” Evidently, the indoctrinating messages are well absorbed by the youngsters, as several scenes in the documentary show young girls singing, “I will not forget my promise to take back my land” and “We are filled with rage.” A young camper declares to the camera that she “will defeat the Jews,” who are “a gang of infidels” that “don’t like Allah,” while in another scene, a young boy explains that “the summer camp teaches us that we have to liberate Palestine.”

On June 1, 2017, UNRWA found part of a tunnel that passed under two of the Agency’s schools in the Ma’azi camp in the Gaza Strip (the Ma’azi A&B elementary school for boys and the preparatory school for girls). UNRWA complained to Hamas and informed that it intends to seal the tunnel under its compound in the immediate future and that it will not approve the entry of a student or faculty member into the building until the matter is settled. After a thorough inspection of the site, UNRWA confirmed that there are no entry and exit points to the tunnel in the complex and no connection between the tunnel and the schools or other buildings in the complex.23 However, these random complaints on the part of UNRWA do not contradict the fact that UNRWA employed, and still employs, many Hamas operatives in its teams, as evidenced by a recent report by the organization Impact-se.24

The first section of the report details how 13 UNRWA staff members publicly praised, celebrated, or expressed their support for the unprecedented deadly assaults on civilians on October 7. The second section of the study documents the profiles of 18 Hamas terrorists who graduated from UNRWA schools, using material from the Hamas website, which confirms that they died carrying out acts of terror. The research indicates that according to Hamas sources, more than 100 UNRWA graduates served as active Hamas terrorists.

Abnormally, on October 16, 2023, UNRWA accused Hamas, in a post on Twitter, of stealing diesel fuel and medical equipment from the Agency: “UNRWA received reports that yesterday a group of people with trucks purporting to be from the Ministry of Health of the de-facto authorities in Gaza, removed fuel and medical equipment from the Agency’s compound in Gaza City.”25 A few hours later, the tweet was deleted.26

Not just the recent evidence shows that UNRWA staff are affiliated with Hamas. According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Hamas has controlled the UNRWA Gaza staff union since 2009, and many UNRWA employees are affiliated with Hamas.27 UNRWA spokeswoman Tamara Alrifai confirmed to Foreign Policy in 2021 that UNRWA takes action only when its employees are found to hold a political position within Hamas; the organization acts if a staff member is formally affiliated with a terrorist group.28 However, In April 2017, UNRWA engineer Muhammad al-Jamassi was also elected to the Hamas Politburo, but it is unknown whether UNRWA took any action regarding him.29

Considering the totality of the mentioned discoveries, along with old cases of UNRWA facilities being used to shoot at IDF forces in previous rounds of hostilities, it is not surprising that during the recent Israel-Hamas war, a tunnel shaft was discovered in the north of the Gaza Strip near an UNRWA school, which led to an underground tunnel 18 meters deep and about 700 meters long, which served as a central military intelligence asset of Hamas and passed under UNRWA’s central headquarters in the Gaza Strip. From there, the day-to-day activities of the UN Agency were conducted. The electrical infrastructure in the tunnel was connected to the central headquarters building, indicating the electricity supply to the tunnel route through UNRWA assets.30

Later, in a raid on the headquarters that includes the offices of several international humanitarian organizations, uniforms, and combat equipment were found, as well as many weapons, including guns, ammunition, grenades, vests, explosive charges and belts, explosives, and explosive activation systems. In the offices of UNRWA, officials found intelligence measures and documents that indicate that Hamas terrorists also used the offices. It was also exposed that UNRWA disconnected its communication and operating systems, including the recording and photography devices at the site, and also removed its signage in an attempt to disguise the use it allowed Hamas terrorists to make of the Agency’s infrastructure and facilities. During a raid on the UNRWA headquarters in the Rimal neighborhood, a combat compound was found containing ammunition that was taken from the IDF on October 7, including personal weapons, cartridges, grenades, and a machine gun, along with charges, explosive devices, and equipment of Hamas terrorists.31

These revelations join the reports of Israeli abductees who said that UNRWA personnel, including a teacher at the agency, held them. Intelligence reports revealed that UNRWA staff members participated in the terrorist attack on October 7, while others assisted logistically, provided weapons, and more. According to estimates, about 10% of the 12,000 UNRWA staff in Gaza are associated with or related to the terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip – Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – while about half of the workers have a relative active in one of the organizations.32 If there was still doubt, given all the indications that have been accumulating for years, UNRWA not only turns a blind eye to the activities of the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip while using its facilities and resources but cooperates with them on an ongoing basis, and sometimes even mobilizes in practice to support the combat operations.33

3.2 Inappropriate Textbooks

The continued use of inappropriate textbooks in UNRWA schools, particularly in Gaza and the West Bank,34 also remains a source of much controversy, even though reports of various sources have repeatedly raised the issue of a hostile attitude towards Israel and the Jewish people, promoted by the schoolbooks.35 A decade-long research study on the Palestinian curriculum at UNRWA schools examined some 150 textbooks of various subjects taught in grades 1-10, which the PA issued between 2000-2005.36 The study found three fundamental negative attitudes in the presentation of the Jewish/Israeli “other”: denial of the legitimacy of the State of Israel, demonization of the State of Israel, and advocacy for the violent struggle for Palestinian liberation.

According to this research report, PA schoolbooks, for example, do not recognize any Jewish rights or Jewish holy places in Palestine but merely “greedy ambitions.” Generally, the name of the state, “Israel,” does not appear on the maps (or within textual material), and Jewish cities and regions within Israel proper are presented as exclusively Palestinian. Israel’s Jews are not counted among the country’s legitimate inhabitants, which are comprised solely of Israeli Arabs and Diaspora Palestinians. The demonization of Israel presents it as an occupying entity, existing at the expense of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and as a source of many evils committed against the Palestinians and other Arabs. Consequently, no peaceful solution to the conflict has been advocated in PA books used in UNRWA schools. Instead, the books advocate a violent struggle for liberation, not restricted to the West Bank and Gaza, and underlined by the notions of Jihad and Shahadah (martyrdom).

Another research study, which examined 364 schoolbooks across all grades and subjects published between 2013 and 2018, along with 89 teachers’ guides published in 2016-2018, came to the same conclusions and stated that UNRWA, through the education system it maintains, is in practice a full partner in the anti-Israeli and even anti-Semitic indoctrination promoted by the PA in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.37

A 2019 research study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that UNRWA teachers created their own supplementary material during the coronavirus; the materials were found to be rife with incitement to violence and hatred and support for terrorism, such as glorifying the infamous terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who participated in the massacre on the coastal road in 1978, in which dozens of Israelis were murdered. As a result, the IDF launched Operation Litani.38 At the time, UNRWA claimed that the material had been distributed “mistakenly” and that it was put together in a “rush” by UNRWA teachers who “are refugees themselves.” It is clear that by blaming its teachers, UNRWA admitted that the teachers are part of the problem since they cannot distinguish those contents that are against the UN’s standards and should be avoided. Following this incident, UNRWA insisted that the “mistake” had been rectified.39 Yet, a July 2022 report by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found that institutional UNRWA-branded and UNRWA-produced school materials labeled for use in 2022 contained content encouraging Jihad, violence, and martyrdom, as well as promoting antisemitism, conflict discourse, hate, and intolerance.40

A March 2023 joint report by UN Watch and IMPACT-se distributed to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, EU Commissioner Joseph Borrell, German Chancellor Olaf Schulz, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and UNRWA Commissioner-General Lazzarini included dozens of examples of hateful educational content collected from 10 various schools of UNRWA between the years 2021-2023 and intended for the 7th and 9th grades.41 The contents were collected from materials prepared by UNRWA’s education departments and its staff – directors, deputy directors, education experts, and teachers, bearing the agency’s logo. These contents were removed from UNRWA’s digital learning platform, which it claims is the only source of learning materials, but it was found that they were distributed to hundreds of students through various alternative means and studied in the Agency’s classrooms.

The report indicates 133 UNRWA educators and staff members who were found to have encouraged hatred and violence in the media and 82 other teachers and staff members who are involved in producing and distributing hateful content to students. The evidence showed the glorification in the classrooms of the terrorist Dalal Moghrabi as a warrior leader and a hero to be admired, as well as an admired sermon in the fifth grade (September 2022) of Ezz al-Din al-Qassam, as a hero who preached the murder of Jews. Testimonies from the middle school for the children of Al-Ma’azi in Gaza exhibited education about violence, the demonization of Israel, and encouragement for martyrdom; 9th-grade students (December 2022) learned a section on reading comprehension in Arabic on behalf of UNRWA, which glorified the attack on a Jewish bus that was presented as a “barbecue party,” and another text from the UNRWA creative house that was prepared for 9th-grade students who presented Israelis as “sadistic predators” accompanied by harsh graphic descriptions, attached to fictitious texts, of Israelis brutally murdering Palestinians (for example, a “Zionist officer” deliberately shoots a Palestinian fisherman in front of his son, as a fountain of blood erupts from his chest). 5th-grade students at the school in Al-Ma’azi learned that “martyrdom and Jihad are the most meaningful things in life” through vocabulary and grammar exercises in the Arabic language (September 2022). At the middle school in Tel al-Hua in Gaza, as part of a social studies lesson (September 2022) to the 9th graders, the message was conveyed that a violent conflict against Israel is a “divine right.” Another text to the 9th graders spread the blood plot according to which Israel causes cancer in Palestinians through the burial of toxic waste in the West Bank and Gaza. In the middle school in Asma for girls, the students were encouraged to liberate the homeland through the “sacrifice of blood” and Jihad; material for learning the Arabic language for classes at the school in Asma (September 2022) included an exercise encouraging self-sacrifice of one’s life for the homeland as a matter of duty, and a grammar exercise stated that “I will wage Jihad to liberate the homeland,” and “I will not give up an inch of my land.”

Another report revealed that at least 100 Hamas members committing the terror attacks were graduates of UNRWA’s education system; their textbooks include content that encourages antisemitism, glorifies violence, and promotes militant Jihad.42

The educational services provided by UNRWA to Palestinian students – particularly in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but also in neighboring countries – help to propagate a non-peaceful point of view, upholding a political vision of a continued struggle against a delegitimized Israel until its eventual destruction.43 By maintaining the policy of non-involvement in the local curricula taught in its schools44 – a policy that should not be taken for granted in the first place by a UN body45 – as well as by refraining from screening the use of its facilities and by ignoring the “unofficial” activity of its local staff, UNRWA ignored the obvious.46

4. Politicization of Relief

4.1 Self-Proclaimed “Protection Mandate” & Political Advocacy

It is no secret that UNRWA’s work has long crossed the lines of humanitarianism and relief deep into the political realm. Indeed, the acceptance by UNRWA’s leadership of the mission to enhance the political rights of Palestinians, not only refugees, has gradually become a key trend, characterizing the Agency’s activity.47 Particularly since the first intifada (1987), and following the request of the former UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar that UNRWA expands its activities to protect refugees and non-refugees alike “on an emergency basis and as a temporary measure,”48 UNRWA has unilaterally expanded its mandate to include ‘protection’ and to encompass all Palestinians.49

The Agency’s international staff, including its Refugee Affairs Officers (RAOs) in the West Bank and Gaza, who had been nominated to implement UNRWA’s so-called “protection mandate,” became intensively involved in publicity activity – that is, the collection and collation of information on protection issues, and their publication – either through reports or by making this information available to the media.50 Consequently, as Lindsay observes, even when the first intifada ended and the Interim Self-Government Arrangements had been signed,

UNRWA’s endorsement of Palestinian political views was also notable throughout the second intifada (2000). The Agency’s RAOs were replaced by Operations Support Officers (OSOs), whose primary duty was to provide “general assistance” protection, including “observing and reporting.”52 The one-sided positions of UNRWA officials were reflected by their focus on condemning Israeli counter-terrorism efforts in language associated with war crimes. Criticism of Palestinian-initiated attacks was mild and infrequent.53 This trend has continued ever since.

UNRWA officials frequently condemn the IDF’s attacks on terrorists in response to rocket strikes on Israeli civilian targets launched from Gaza as a “disproportionate, indiscriminate, and excessive use of force.”54 For the appearance of balanced reporting, UNRWA commentary would sometimes also mention “the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel” – but as an afterthought, not in terms of war crimes or terrorist attacks, never protesting the bombarding of innocent Israeli civilians.55 In fact, on several occasions, former Commissioner-General Karen Abu Zayd even referred to the continuous firing of Qassam rockets into Israel from Gaza as a legitimate “response” to “military incursions.”56 In May 2021, UNRWA was forced to re-assign its Gaza Director, Mathias Schmale, after he had admitted in a television interview that the Israeli strikes were “very precise,” i.e., not targeting civilians, and Hamas declared him persona non grata in Gaza. In another interview, Schmale was asked about the possibility of tunnels under UNRWA’s central headquarters in the Gaza Strip. Schmale stated that it was indeed proved that a tunnel was found under a school located very close to the headquarters after Israel precisely bombed it. He clarified that during his four years of service in Gaza, many people told him that there were tunnels everywhere. However, he could not state whether the tunnels were under the UNRWA headquarters. However, in any case, according to him, it was a reasonable assumption, considering that a tunnel was found so close to the headquarters.57

The UNRWA leadership’s political position is also reflected in the continuous, unqualified support it provides to Hamas in various international fora, despite its violent methods and declared dedication to eliminating Israel. In the past, Commissioner-General Abu Zayd was particularly active in campaigning devotedly against the West’s isolation of Hamas, calling upon European leaders in particular to engage with the group as a pre-condition for “regaining credibility with Palestinians” and ending “the partisan approach to denouncing violence and to blaming the victims.”58 In the same spirit, UNRWA’s leadership also protested the Quartet’s embargo of the Hamas government, thus openly challenging the formal policies of its primary donors – the USA and the EU – as well as the UN.59 Since 2008, UNRWA has echoed Hamas’ views by keenly criticizing the Israeli blockade of Gaza on humanitarian grounds while at the same time ignoring reports regarding the theft of humanitarian assistance items by the group.60

Indeed, in practice, UNRWA’s so-called “protection mandate” has allowed the Agency to become a fierce advocate for Palestinians in its dealings with Israel. However, the Agency remains nearly silent and indifferent when Arab governments in host countries violate or restrict Palestinian civil rights.61 Such was the case, for example, when almost 400,000 Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait in 1991, despite repeated warnings issued by human rights organizations regarding the large-scale violation of their rights. As well there is the more recent case of the grievous treatment of Palestinians by the government of Lebanon, where Palestinians live, according to Human Rights Watch, “in appalling social and economic conditions” due to far-reaching legal restrictions on their access to the labor market and discrimination under property and title laws.62

4.2 Growing Involvement in Political Speech

As cited earlier, UNRWA’s current leadership follows the path of routinely exploiting every international stage and forum available to delegitimize Israel and its policies. This method has become essential to UNRWA’s extensive global fund-raising campaign. A recent collection of UNRWA’s outgoing chief executive’s pronouncements is illuminating. In his farewell speech before the Fourth Committee of the UN General Assembly in November 2013, Grandi repeated his motto of “profound concern” regarding the international community’s preoccupation with Syria. According to Grandi, it might divert attention from the situation in Gaza, which was “exacerbated by the closure of tunnels, through which many basic commodities were entering”63 – completely ignoring the systematic use of such tunnels by terrorist groups for their massive smuggling operations of illegal arms and ammunition into the Gaza Strip.64 He further condemned, at length, the “stifling restrictions imposed by Israel in the West Bank including East Jerusalem,” as well as settlers’ behavior, the “possible transfer of the Bedouin community,” and the conduct of Israeli military operations.65 No censorship whatsoever was mentioned of Palestinian violence or terrorist activity against Israel and Israeli citizens. “Rockets launched towards southern Israel” were briefly mentioned – not condemned – by Grandi, and only after raising concerns about possible “Israeli military incursions.”

A few days later, at the opening session of UNRWA’s Advisory Commission (AdCom), Grandi suggested that “strengthening the human security of the people of Gaza is a better avenue to ensuring regional stability than physical closures, political isolation, and military action.” To obtain this, according to Grandi, “first and foremost, the Israeli blockade, which is illegal66, must be lifted.”67 At the previous round of the AdCom’s meetings, several months earlier, Grandi blamed “the interests of the Israeli government in sustaining an unresolved situation” and trumping “the real substance of security and stability” in the region, including the fact that “Palestinian leadership remains divided.”68 During a visit to Rio-de-Janeiro to add Brazil to UNRWA’s donor base, Grandi spoke about the Gaza blockade as “one of the harshest occupation measures of modern times” and condemned the “complex web of policies and restrictions” that “thrives under the umbrella of military occupation and has been slowly depriving Palestinians of assets and livelihood.”69

It is no wonder that the style, tone, and example set by UNRWA’s Commissioners-General has impacted other UNRWA officials. Another example was provided by Former UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness, who took advantage of a public event (2013) to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Count Folke Bernadotte in 1948 to condemn Israeli officials who were, according to Gunness, “venerated in the most senior echelons of Israeli public life,” and whose “values and rejectionist attitudes towards the UN sadly are reinforced by repetitious nationalistic mythologizing.”70 “Selective ignorance” was his preferred terminology for describing the attitude of these officials, who, according to Gunness, followed Ben-Gurion’s dismissive attitude towards the UN. Recently, Chris Gunness was interviewed on a podcast called The Electronic Intifada, where he “debunks Israel’s lies” during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war.71

In this regard, it is no surprise that UNRWA’s Area Staff Regulations, as well as International Staff Regulations (and also UN Staff Regulations),72 both necessitate “to avoid any action and in particular any kind of pronouncement which may adversely reflect on their status, or on the integrity, independence, and impartiality which are required by that status,” as well as the engagement “in any political activity which is inconsistent with or might reflect upon the independence and impartiality required by their status,” are easily ignored. After all, if the Agency’s most high-ranking officials disregard their obligation for impartiality, what can be asked – or expected – from the more junior officials, let alone the area staff, made up almost entirely of locals?

Despite repeated statements that UNRWA is not a political organization,73 the Agency is regularly involved in political speech and public pronouncements.74 This is mainly due to the fact that UNRWA lacks outside controls over its chief executive, who receives hardly any political guidance from any of the relevant international bodies that are in a position to provide direction75 and thus effectively enjoy broad authority and freedom of action and speech.

5. Lex Specialis Bypassing International Law

5.1 Defining a “Refugee” and Upholding the “Right of Return”

UNRWA’s activity involves two complex, interrelated conceptual-legal controversies: the definition of a “refugee” entitled to the protection of certain international arrangements and the existence of a so-called “right of return.” A thorough doctrinal investigation into these issues is beyond the scope of this commentary.76 Nevertheless, it is important to note how UNRWA’s very existence and its actual performance have created a sort of lex specialis in the case of Palestinian refugees, thus bypassing existing and internationally accepted legal definitions, requirements, and arrangements, thereby contributing to the complication and misconception of these issues.

UNRWA remains the only UN agency whose area of operation is not global but regional and which deals with a single group of people.77 It is also unique among UN agencies in that it directly provides various government-like public services. Unlike its sister organization, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), mandated in 1950 to coordinate the handling of all refugee communities worldwide, UNRWA was established in that year to deal exclusively with Palestinian refugees, who were excluded from the protection of the UNHCR.78 Furthermore, while the aims and operations of the UNHCR are based on international instruments – mainly the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees – UNRWA was never provided with a specific statute or charter.79 It has operated since its inception under a general mandate, renewed every three years by the General Assembly.80 The latter, however, has been offering little guidance concerning the evolution of the Agency’s mandate.81 It, therefore, remains for the UNRWA Commissioner-General to determine, in good faith, any questions concerning the mandate.82

The decision to establish UNRWA, just a few days after the decision had been taken to establish the UNHCR, was the initiative of Arab countries that feared that the inclusion of Palestinian refugees under the general definition of “refugees” would be interpreted as a waiver of their claim that “return” was the sole solution, and as an implied agreement to resettlement in their territories.83 The creation of a separate, autonomous UN agency thus allowed them to impose limitations on UNRWA’s mandate to provide “temporary assistance,” while the UNHCR’s mandate generally provided for refugees’ rehabilitation and resettlement.84 Indeed, in the following years, the majority of refugees, as well as Arab states, objected to any attempt by UNRWA to facilitate integration into their countries of residence, insisting on the return of refugees to Israel.85 As was acknowledged by Lt. Gen. Sir Alexander Galloway, director of UNRWA in Jordan, in 1952:

UNRWA, which never criticized the refugees or the Arab states for failing its original resettlement and reintegration scheme,87 has consequently developed into a vast welfare agency, providing quasi-governmental services for a huge population of refugees, which has grown more and more dependent on its benefits. It has thus entrenched the idea of return and its misconception as a legal right rather than a privilege or a political claim.88 Today, UNRWA’s leadership does not hesitate to openly advocate the solution of return, as reflected in the words of UNRWA’s outgoing chief executive, who stated recently that,

The fact that UNRWA was established as a distinct arrangement by the General Assembly also allowed for the development of a unique operational definition of a “Palestinian refugee” entitled to the Agency’s services. Based on UNRWA documents rather than any formal UN decision, such a definition deviates from the general definition recognized under international refugee law (as a key for benefitting under UNHCR protection) and was tailored to fit the political interests of those states that initially sponsored the Agency. According to UNRWA’s original definition, a Palestinian refugee was a person whose normal place of residence had been Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948,90 who had lost his home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 war. Controversially, in 1965, UNRWA decided to create an extension of eligibility to the third generation of refugees (that is, to children of persons who were themselves born after 14 May 1948).91

In 1982, the Agency took another far-reaching decision to extend eligibility to all subsequent generations of descendants without any limitation.92 Further deviating from the accepted norms and arrangements regarding refugees worldwide,93 UNRWA also registers as “refugees” those who have acquired citizenship in other countries.94 Given UNRWA’s broad definitions, it is, therefore, no wonder that the current number of Palestinian refugees, according to the Agency’s figures,95 amounts to nearly 6 million – approximately 20 percent of the number of refugees in the entire world96 – whereas the formal number of original refugees who fled Palestine in 1948 was around 700,000-750,000,97 out of whom nearly 5 percent or less are still alive.98 As was stated recently in a report presented to the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, UNWRA’s practice in this regard is,

Even PA President Mahmoud Abbas has openly acknowledged in the past that,

5.2 Mythologizing “Refugeeism”

Whereas the mission of the UNHCR is generally to reduce the number of refugees in the world, UNRWA has brought about an exponential increase in the number of Palestinian refugees. More than anything else, its actions have underlined the issue of Palestinian refugees as a significant, far-reaching, practical political concern, not simply a humanitarian one.101 In this, as acknowledged by Zilbershats and Goren-Amitai, the UN Agency serves as an agent, fulfilling “the political desire of the Arab states and the Palestinians to preserve, expand, and perpetuate the refugee problem in order to avoid the need to recognize the State of Israel as a Jewish state.”102 Others have also acknowledged the financial aspect of the situation, pointing to the fact that a decrease in the number of refugees would result in the PA losing hundreds of millions of dollars in annual aid.103

Furthermore, UNRWA’s ideological insistence on the “right of return,” combined with its policy of inflating the number of refugees, greatly contributes to the strengthening of the sense of nationalism and solidarity underlined by feelings of injustice, cultivating a collective memory based on a mentality of victimhood.104 Over the years, the Agency’s leadership plainly – and actively – supports this mindset, as demonstrated when the former Commissioner-General showed pride in unveiling UNRWA’s newly digitized archives under the title: “The Long Journey: Digitizing the Palestine Refugee Experience.”105 According to UNRWA’s website, these archives, funded by the governments of Denmark and France, Palestinian NGOs, and private sector partners, consist of “over half a million negatives, prints, slides, films and videocassettes covering all aspects of the life and history of Palestine refugees from 1948 to the present day.” Describing the UNRWA archives, considered since before their digitization to be part of Palestinian national heritage,106 Grandi stated that,

Notably, UNRWA organized and launched a traveling exhibition based on the new archives; after being presented in the Old City of Jerusalem, UNRWA scheduled the exhibition to go on tour, starting in January 2014, to key cities in the Agency’s areas of operation, as well as “centers of culture and politics in Europe and North America.”109

Such activity exemplifies UNRWA’s decisive role in constructing Palestinian political identity and in mythologizing refugeeism,110 as has been suggested by R. Bowker:

Indeed, in recent years, more and more commentators have raised concerns that UNRWA’s determined policies, in fact, overwhelm voices coming from within Palestinian society – of those who wish their people to abandon the refugee camps without claiming return. An article in “The Economist,” from a decade ago, noting that almost 70 percent of West Bank refugees already live outside refugee camps, quotes a camp psychologist admitting that “people don’t even dream anymore of returning.”112 Also, Palestinian leaders privately confess that even if there were a deal with Israel, “the refugees and their offspring will never return en masse to Israel.”113 Thus, by treating Palestinian refugees as a collective socio-political group, UNRWA overlooks differing attitudes of adaptation to changing political contexts and economic circumstances and studies that show how new “pragmatic” discourses among Palestinians and new symbolic meanings attached to the “right of return” have emerged.114

6. Donor Countries’ Awareness & the Quest for Accountability

Within the last few decades, under the orchestration of impassioned commissioners-general,115 the vast, quasi-governmental machinery into which UNRWA has evolved has made itself highly susceptible to political manipulation. It has become an active agent in reaching out to international actors and audiences and an effective tool in manipulating public opinion worldwide.

Evidently, several legal-institutional and political factors have combined to bring about this situation. The “original sin” of creating a unique, “temporary” agency tailored to meet certain political demands without providing a specific statute or an accountability framework left UNRWA’s leadership with unparalleled broad discretion and authority to shape the Agency’s mandate and implement its policies. Furthermore, because the Agency’s funding system is guaranteed almost exclusively by voluntary contributions from donor countries, it has to constantly develop sophisticated communication skills to market its mission and secure its funding. This mission has become more and more difficult since the 1990s.

Apparently, crucial policy decisions taken throughout the years and bearing far-reaching political consequences, such as those regarding the definition of the Agency’s beneficiaries that resulted in the relentless inflation in the number of Palestinian refugees or the adoption of initiatives within a so-called, never-clearly-stated “protection mandate,” have inflicted tremendous, steadily growing budgetary constraints on the Agency. Eventually, the international community has to shoulder the burden of these costs.

UNRWA’s leaders have thus become occupied with efforts to break the vicious circle created by the Agency’s own policies – either by convincing donor countries to enlarge their contributions or campaigning to persuade other countries to join its donor base.116 Clearly, within these efforts, criticizing the conduct of camp residents, host authorities, or extremist groups for the poor humanitarian conditions of the refugees would lead to their disenfranchisement with UNRWA and would badly affect local refugee communities, and is therefore not an option. However, as was demonstrated earlier, “naming and blaming” Israel definitely is. Mythologizing refugeeism and upholding the “right of return” further validate the Agency’s raison d’être.

Altogether, such activities are not always compatible with the interests and political positions of moderate Palestinian leadership; they obstruct pragmatic efforts to mediate the positions of Israelis and Palestinians. On the other hand, UNRWA is a vital source of income and a caretaker of unstable factions within Palestinian society.

Going against its policies would probably cause much political unrest and be perceived as defying the cause of Palestinian refugees.117 In this way, the status quo, which allows a growing political involvement by UNRWA, mostly plays into the hands of extremist groups such as Hamas, whose position and practices the Agency has been backing in international fora since it took over the Gaza Strip.

Within the last few years, however, there has been a growing awareness within political, diplomatic, and academic circles regarding UNRWA’s policies and the Agency’s growing tendency toward active political involvement. This has attracted attention to UNWRA’s lack of accountability and the unfettered freedom of speech enjoyed by its executive officers, defying the fundamental norms of objectivity and neutrality that oblige UN officials as international civil servants.118 Consequently, some donor states have not remained indifferent.

In January 2010, the government of Canada decided to cut off funding to UNRWA, redirecting its contributions to the PA to “ensure accountability.”119 In December 2011, the Dutch foreign minister declared its government’s intention to “thoroughly review” its policies toward UNRWA.120 The British parliament’s International Development Committee has also launched an inquiry into UNRWA funding within its assessment of the United Kingdom’s development work in the Middle East.121 In March 2009, in the U.S. House of Representatives, 22 Democrats and Republicans criticized UNRWA for having violated the requirement of neutrality and assisting Hamas.122 Furthermore, in May 2012, a significant amendment was passed by the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee and incorporated into the Fiscal Year 2013 Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Bill, directing the Secretary of State to report to the Committee on the current number of UNRWA beneficiaries in different categories (“original” 1948 refugees; their descendants), as well as the extent to which the provision of UNRWA services “furthers the security interests of the United States and of other U.S. allies in the Middle East.”123 Recently, Under the leadership of former U.S. President Donald Trump, the United States cut funding to UNRWA in 2018, labeling the agency “irredeemably flawed.”124 However, President Biden unconditionally resumed funding UNRWA in 2021.125

Such initiatives testify to the fact that UNRWA’s position as a stabilizing, “peace servicing” factor in the region and as a guardian of refugee interests126 is no longer taken for granted in the eyes of Western donor countries. They also reflect the growing quest for accountability and acknowledgment of donor countries’ responsibility to scrutinize UNRWA’s policies to ensure the strict application of their tax-payer money toward relief and humanitarian causes.

7. Conclusion

Seventy-five years after its establishment, UNRWA still has no settled accountability framework – let alone a broadly accepted, defined mandate – that would enable the international community to scrutinize and direct the Agency’s daily performance. This situation allows its leadership, as well as interested parties – first and foremost the Palestinian leadership and some Arab (host) countries – to manipulate this vast UN agency, mainly sponsored by goodwill contributions of the international taxpayer. The Agency’s relatively powerful influence on Palestinian educational activities, as well as the fact that more than half of its general budget is dedicated to education,127 further highlight UNRWA’s problematic educational role in the Middle East conflict. It demands urgent, ongoing scrutiny on the part of donor countries – most of which are Western democracies – to ensure that their contributions are not being misused to support terrorism or to incite violence and hatred.

As commentators have observed in the past, donor countries, particularly those with the most influence on UNRWA’s leadership, need to persuade the Agency to strictly limit its actions and public pronouncements to humanitarian issues.128

UNRWA is funded by the voluntary contributions of a relatively narrow donor base. Therefore, Western donor countries are likely in the most effective position to influence and direct UNRWA leadership to prevent the humanitarian Agency from being further exploited for the promotion of extremist agendas, the backing of terrorist groups, and the growing involvement of its officials in political speech and public pronouncement. As one commentator put it recently, paraphrasing Clausewitz: “Humanitarianism, not just war, has now become the continuation of politics by other means.”129 Indeed, if we are to judge according to some of UNRWA’s activities and policies within the last few decades, accountable, restrained leadership and more determined action on the part of donor states are required in order to prevent the Agency from further exemplifying this.130

In January 2024, following the revelations on the ground and the intelligence regarding the involvement of UNRWA and its staff in terrorist activities and cooperation with Hamas elements, the central donor countries, led by the United States and Germany,131 as well as the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Finland, and Austria,132 decided to suspend the aid funds transferred to UNRWA. This unprecedented step could completely paralyze the Agency’s activities.133 Following this, UN Secretary-General Guterres announced that, in consultation with General-Commissioner Lazzarini, and in response to the latter’s request, he appointed an independent review team “to examine whether the agency is doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality and to provide an answer to the accusations regarding the serious violations.”134 The former French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, was appointed as the head of the team, which cooperated in the examination with three research institutes: the Raoul Wallenberg Institute from Sweden, the Michelsen Institute from Norway, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights. This, at the same time as the examination by the UN inspection bodies of the concrete accusations leveled against the involvement of 12 UNRWA staff members in the October 7 Hamas attack. The so-called Colonna Independent Review Panel Report on UNRWA was released on February 2024, providing 50 recommendations and noting that “Israeli authorities have yet to provide proof of their claims that UN staff are involved with terrorist organizations.”135 Following the report’s release, many UNRWA donor countries hurried to lift the pause on their funding to the Agency.136

Notwithstanding the conclusions of the Colona Report, recently, it was reported that Israel, based on new revelations, has submitted UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Lazzarini a letter listing in detail (names, ID, and military ID numbers) more than 100 UNRWA workers who are allegedly Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, stating that the names included are part of a “broader list” of the Agency’s workers affiliated with these terrorist organizations.137 Also, there are ongoing reports regarding the widespread military use by Hamas terrorists of UNRWA’s facilities.138

Because of the nature of the problematic revelations and the harsh criticisms that have been leveled against UNRWA at various levels for many years, the examination that the UN Secretary-General initiated was not even in the scope of “too little and too late” but rather a camouflage and a diversion of the attention of the international community, while deliberately ignoring completely the root of the problem and the seriousness of the accusations involved in UNRWA’s activities and conduct. The nature of the allegations and deficiencies indicates that the examination is not a matter for various human rights institutes, political parties, and close associates but rather for objective, independent experts and for an examination of the entirety of the parties involved, including the conduct of the UNRWA Commissioners-General and even of the UN Secretary-General himself, who bears overall responsibility for the activities of UN agencies.

An effective investigation that may bring about a fundamental change in the Agency’s conduct while setting clear standards and establishing sustainable supervision and control mechanisms can only be carried out by qualified and objective national bodies on behalf of the donating countries, both at the military and intelligence level and at the criminal legal level, and only then by experts in providing humanitarian aid.

Moreover, this examination must consider, once and for all, the inherent problems involved in the activity of a UN agency of huge dimensions, that by its very existence, upholding the “right of return,” it practically negates the existence of a sovereign UN Member State – Israel, and paradoxically perpetuates one of the fundamental factors of the violent ongoing conflict, whose bloody results she seeks to alleviate through the humanitarian aid on whose behalf she works.

It is yet unclear what part UNRWA will be able to take, if any, within future arrangements after the present war in the context of rebuilding Gaza and overseeing the humanitarian aid that will presumably be provided to the residents of the Gaza Strip. What is obvious, however, is that UNRWA has lost its credibility and even its legitimacy in the eyes of many of the main stakeholders in the region, in particular within Israel.139 Thus, if the Agency does not take serious steps to regain its trustworthiness, first and foremost, by pulling the hands of its workers and leadership from any terrorist and political activity, it is hard to see it integrating and acting meaningfully and authoritatively within any future civil administration arrangements. Unfortunately, deeply rooted in past conceptions, and judging by the recent slight steps taken by the UN Secretary-General and UNRWA Commissioner-General against the background of the severe allegations regarding the conduct of the Agency, it seems quite obvious that neither UNRWA nor the UN can lead the profound reforms required. It, therefore, remains the primary responsibility of UNRWA’s central donor countries to take prompt action in terms of determined tight supervision over the Agency’s field and political activity, as well as their strict demand for accountability on behalf of its workers.

*

Notes

1. See Remarks by Catherine Ashton with UNRWA Commissioner General, Filippo Grandi, at Rimal Boys’ Elementary School, Council of the European Union, Press Release (Gaza, 20 June, 2013), A337/13, available at: http://www.eeas.europa.eu.↩︎

2. Ibid.↩︎

3. See Interview with UNRWA Commissioner General Filippo Grandi, UN News Centre, (14 March, 2013), p. 1, available at: http://www.un.org/apps/news/newsmakers.asp?NewsID=86.↩︎

4. Ibid, pp. 3-4.↩︎

5. Remarks by Filippo Grandi, at the Conference on Cooperation among East Asian Countries for Palestinian Development (Feb. 14, 2013), p. 3 (italics added).↩︎

6. Ibid. According to Grandi, ‘occupation policies’ include ‘the blockade of Gaza; the cantonization of the West Bank; the expansion of settlements; the usurpation of water resources; and the alienation of Palestinians from East Jerusalem’.↩︎

7. Statement of Mr. Philippe Lazzarini The Commissioner-General at The Joint Emergency Summit of the League of Arab States and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, UNRWA (11 Nov. 2023). https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/statement-mr-philippe-lazzarini-commissioner-general-joint-emergency-Summit-League-Arab-States.↩︎

8. Remarks by UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini to the United Nations General Assembly Fourth Committee, UNRWA (3 Nov. 2023), https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/remarks-unrwa-commissioner-general-philippe-lazzarini-to-the-united-nations; Briefing of Mr. Phillippe Lazzarini, The Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East on the situation in the Middle East, Including the Palestinian Question, New York, 30 October, 2023.↩︎

9. See generally Lindsay, op. cit. note 1, pp. 33-48. See also A. Kushner, The UN’s Palestinian Refugee Problem, Azure, No. 22 (2005), available at: http://azure.org.il/; A. Kushner, UNRWA: A Hard Look at an Agency in Trouble, Centre for Near East Policy Research, (2005); B. Rubin, A. Romirowsky, J. Spyer, UNRWA: Refuge of Rejectionism, Global Research in International Affairs, (2008), available at: http://www.romirowsky.com/; N. Nachmias, UNRWA at 60: Are There Better Alternatives?, MEF Policy Forum, (2009), available at: http://www.meforum.org/; M.S. Bernstam, The Palestinian Proletariat, Commentary, (Dec. 2010), available at: http://www.commnetarymagazine.com/; A. Kushner, UNRWA’s Anti-Israel Bias, The Middle East Quarterly, (2011), available at: http://www.meforum.org/. A significant collection of research papers can be found within the Refugee Survey Quarterly, Vol. 28 (Nos. 2 & 3), (2010) that was dedicated to commemorating UNRWA’s 60th anniversary.↩︎

10. Lindsay, op. cit. note 1, p. 33. See also R. G. Khouri, Sixty Years of UNRWA: From Service Provision to Refugee Protection, Refugee Survey Quarterly, Vol. 28 (Nos. 2 & 3), (2010), p. 449.↩︎

11. Lindsay, ibid, pp. 39-40.↩︎

12. Ibid, p. 30 fn. 30, 40.↩︎

13. Ibid, p. 31, 39; ‘UNRWA in Figures’ (as of 1 Jan., 2013), available at: http://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/2013042435340.pdf. In the West Bank there are some 4,500 UNRWA area staff members, while in Gaza there are 12,000.↩︎

14. L. Polman, The Crisis Caravan: What’s Wrong with Humanitarian Aid?, (Picador), (2010), p. 108. See also R. Bocco, UNRWA and the Palestinian Refugees: A History within History, Refugee Survey Quarterly, Vol. 28 (Nos. 2 & 3), (2010), pp. 239-240.↩︎

15. Lindsay’s work is probably the most comprehensive, systematic, and articulate commentary written on UNRWA so far.↩︎

16. Lindsay, op. cit. note 1, pp. 31-32.↩︎

17. Ibid, p. 41.↩︎

18. Ibid. See also in this regard accusations regarding Hamas control over UNRWA area staff unions – ibid. See also Luis Lema, La victoire probable du Hamas effraie l’UE, LE TEMPS (6 octobre, 2004) [in French]. https://www.letemps.ch/monde/victoire-probable-hamas-effraie-lue.↩︎

19. Lindsay, op. cit. note 1, p. 32.↩︎

20. Ibid, p. 40.↩︎

21. The video was uploaded to YouTube on July 2013, and was screened in part on Israel’s Channel 2 news. It was directed by journalist D. Bedein, and produced by the Nahum Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research – available at: http://www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com. For UNRWA’s official comment regarding the video, see ‘UNRWA Rejects Allegations of Incitement as Baseless: Statement by UNRWA Spokesperson Chris Gunness’ (22 Aug., 2013), available at: http://www.unrwa.org/.↩︎

22. ‘Al Nakba’ – ‘the Catastrophe’ in Arabic – generally refers to the 1948 War of Independence, while the ‘Nakba Day’ refers to the State of Israel’s day of independence.↩︎

23. Judah Ari Gross, L’UNRWA confirme qu’un tunnel passait en dessous d’une école ciblée à Gaza, The Times of Israel (7 Juin 2021). [in French]. https://fr.timesofisrael.com/lunrwa-confirme-quun-tunnel-passait-en-dessous-dune-ecole-ciblee-a-gaza/.↩︎

24. UNRWA Education: Textbooks and Terror, 10-44 (Impact-se, Nov. 2023), https://www.impact-se.org/wp-content/uploads/UNRWA-Education-Textbooks-and-Terror-Nov-2023.pdf.↩︎

25. https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1713915954759889300/photo/1. See also: Gaza: le Hamas dérobe 24 000 litres de carburant et du matériel médical à l’UNRWA, i24news (16 octobre 2023) [in French]. https://www.i24news.tv/fr/actu/israel-en-guerre/1697470481-gaza-le-hamas-derobe-24-000-litres-de-carburant-et-du-materiel-medical-a-l-unrwa.↩︎

26. L’UNRWA accuse le Hamas de lui avoir volé des fournitures, puis se rétracte, Times of Israel Staff (17 octobre 2023) [in French]. https://fr.timesofisrael.com/lunrwa-declare-que-le-hamas-lui-a-vole-des-fournitures-avant-de-se-retracter/.↩︎

27. Resignation of Suhail al-Hindi, chairman of the UNRWA staff union in the Gaza Strip, after exposure of his election to Hamas’ new Gazan political bureau, The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (24/04/2017). https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/21194/.↩︎

28. Yardena Schwartz, Palestinian Schools Have a Problem—and Are Running Out of Time, Foreign Policy Magazine (Nov. 5, 2021). https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/05/unrwa-palestine-israel-refugees-united-states-funding-corruption-education/#cookie_message_anchor.↩︎

29. supra note 30.↩︎

30. See IDF Spokesperson site, https://www.idf.il/%D7%90%D7%AA%D7%A8%D7%99-%D7%99%D7%97%D7%99%D7%93%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%9F-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%9C%D7%97%D7%9E%D7%94/%D7%9B%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%94%D7%A4%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%97%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%94-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%98%D7%94-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%96%D7%99-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%A8-%D7%90-%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%A2%D7%AA-%D7%A2%D7%96%D7%94-%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%93-%D7%9E%D7%9C%D7%97%D7%9E%D7%94-%D7%A2%D7%96%D7%94; Emanuel Fabian, Directly beneath UNRWA’s Gaza headquarters, IDF uncovers top secret Hamas data center, The Times of Israel (10 Feb. 2024), https://www.timesofisrael.com/directly-beneath-unrwas-gaza-headquarters-idf-uncovers-top-secret-hamas-data-center/.↩︎

31. See https://www.mako.co.il/pzm-soldiers/Article-46a4a3057c39d81027.htm [in Hebrew].↩︎

32. See, for example, Intelligence Reveals Details of UN agency Staff’s Links to Oct. 7 Attack, Wall Street Journal, 29/1/24; A UN Agency Is Accused of Links to Hamas, Wall Street Journal, 2/2/24; UNRWA Workers Accused of Kidnapping Woman, Taking Part in Kibbutz Massacre, New York Times, 29/1/24; Bret Stephens, Abolish the UN’s Palestinian Refugee Agency, Opinion, New York Times, 30/1/24; Israeli Intelligence Report Details UNRWA Workers’ Alleged Involvement in Oct 7 Attack, CNN, 29/1/24.↩︎

33. See in this context David Meir-Levi, History Upside Down – The Roots of Palestinian Fascism and the Myth of Israeli Aggression (2007) (Brief Encounters – Encounter Books), pp. 45-46, who concludes that “perhaps the most valuable asset of all for Hamas has been the UN, which has assisted the organization by turning a blind eye to its terrorist interactions with UN personnel.” He acknowledges, for example, that UNRWA ambulances have been photographed being used by Hamas for terrorist activities. Meir-Levi determines that “of even greater value to Hamas is its dominance in UNRWA’s workforce; all but a few hundred of UNRWA’s twenty-two thousand workers are Palestinians and a good chunk of UNRWA’s billions of dollars of salaries flow into the hands of Hamas sympathizers and hence into Hamas terrorist activities.”↩︎

34. UNRWA uses the books provided by the host governments. Generally, textbooks used by the Agency in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan have raised less attention – see Lindsay, op. cit note 1, p. 42. Nevertheless, in some cases these books have advocated an armed struggle against Israel, denied its legitimacy as a sovereign state and demonized it, and even called for the annihilation of Jews – see research report by A. Groiss, Problematic Educational Role of UNRWA in the Middle East War, Israel Resource Review, (Oct. 18, 2013), p. 1, available at: http://www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com.↩︎

35. See generally, Lindsay, op. cit. note 1, pp. 13, 18, 41-45. Indeed, in the past, it was Commissioner General Michelmore who admitted that UNRWA schools had been supporting a ‘bitterly hostile attitude to Israel’ – see p. 18.↩︎

36. See Groiss, op. cit note 35.↩︎

37. Arnon Groiss, Israel, Jews and Peace in Palestinian Authority Teachers’ Guides, The Center for Near East Policy Research Ltd. (August 2019). http://israelbehindthenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Antisemitism-UNRWA-education.pdf.; Arnon Groiss, Anti-Semitism in UNRWA Education, The Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research (March 21, 2018). https://israelbehindthenews.com/2018/03/21/anti-semitism-in-unrwa-education/. See also: Nadav Shragai, A Lesson in Incitement, Israel Hayom (12 Jan. 2018), https://www.israelhayom.com/2018/01/12/a-lesson-in-incitement/.↩︎

38. Itam Shalev, Review of UNRWA-Produced Study Materials in the Palestinian Territories, Impact-se (Jan. 2021). https://www.impact-se.org/wp-content/uploads/UNRWA-Produced-Study-Materials-in-the-Palestinian-Territories%E2%80%94Jan-2021.pdf.↩︎

39. UNRWA improves safeguards on ensuring adherence of educational materials with UN principles; prepares to launch secure agencywide self-learning platform, UNRWA (14 January 2021). https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/unrwa-improves-safeguards-ensuring-adherence-educational-materials-un.↩︎

40. Review of 2022 UNRWA-Produced Study Materials in the Palestinian Territories, Impact-se (July 2022). https://www.impact-se.org/wp-content/uploads/Review-of-2022-UNRWA-Produced-School-Materials.pdf.↩︎

41. UN Watch, UN Teachers Call to Murder Jews, Reveals New Report, 14/3/23; UNRWA Education: Reform or Regression? a Review of UNRWA Teachers and Schools Concerning Incitement to Hate and Violence (UN WATCH & Impact-se, March 2023). https://unwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2023-Report-UNRWA.pdfA↩︎

42. UNRWA Education: Textbooks and Terror, 45-97 (Impact-se, Nov. 2023). https://www.impact-se.org/wp-content/uploads/UNRWA-Education-Textbooks-and-Terror-Nov-2023.pdf.↩︎

43. See ‘Conclusion’ in ibid, p. 7.↩︎

44. Since the mid-1950s, when UNRWA’s mandate changed from relief and emergency assistance to social development, education became UNRWA’s central program, with the Agency adopting the host country curriculum to its schools – see Takkenberg, op. cit. note 1, pp. 255-256.↩︎

45. Lindsay argues that, being a UN body, that its schools are not adjuncts to the PA or to the host countries educational systems, UNRWA should provide its students with a UN curriculum using UN textbooks – see op. cit note 1, p. 61. See also Bocco, op. cit. note 15, p. 245.↩︎

46. Lindsay, ibid, p. 7. See also p. 41, regarding Hamas control over UNRWA area staff unions. In this regard, UNRWA’s declared efforts to supplement the host governments’ curricula with additional materials and courses designed to ‘foster thinking about human rights, tolerance, and conflict resolution’ are quite unhelpful – see p. 6. Bocco concludes that, with due respect to the national curricula of host countries, ‘UNRWA schools could do more to foster a culture of peace and reconciliation’ – see ibid, ibid. See also I. Marcus, ‘UNRWA Workers ‘Adamantly Opposed’ to Holocaust Education in UNRWA Schools’, Palestinian Media Watch, (Apr. 27, 2011), available at: http://www.palwatch.org.↩︎

47. Lindsay, ibid, p. 13.↩︎

48. Ibid, p. 20. See also J. Al-Husseini, R. Bocco, The Status of the Palestinian Refugees in the Near East: The Right of Return and UNRWA in Perspective, Refugee Survey Quarterly, Vol. 28 (Nos. 2 & 3), (2010), p. 267 & fn. 29, regarding the ad hoc nature of UNRWA protection programs.↩︎

49. Undoubtedly, UNRWA’s evolving ‘protection mandate’ is one of the most controversial issues regarding the Agency’s activities – see generally M. Kagan, Is There Really a Protection Gap? UNRWA’s Role vis-à-vis Palestinian Refugees, Refugee Survey Quarterly, Vol. 28 (Nos. 2 & 3), (2010), pp. 511-530. Notably, in 2000, the UN Secretary General described UNRWA’s mandate, acknowledging that ‘Under its mandate … the scope of the Agency’s activities is mainly humanitarian in nature’ – Secretary General’s Bulletin, ‘Organization of UNRWA’, UN Doc. ST/SGB/2000/6 (17 Feb. 2000), note 1, as quoted in L. Bartholomeusz, The Mandate of UNRWA at Sixty, Refugee Survey Quarterly, Vol. 28 (Nos. 2 & 3), (2010), pp. 461-462. Nevertheless, Commissioner General K. AbuZayd stated that, despite the fact that, ‘unlike UNHCR, UNRWA’s creation was not by a statute with express references to “protection”, nevertheless, protection is an integral part of UNRWA’s mandate and in view of the human rights challenges faced by many Palestinians and Palestine refugees, this aspect of our work has gained greater importance since the 1980s’ – see K. AbuZayd, UNRWA and the Palestinian Refugees after Sixty Years: Assessing Developments and Marking Challenges, Refugee Survey Quarterly, Vol. 28 (Nos. 2 & 3), (2010), p. 228, (italics added). For AbyZayd’s significant role in promoting UNRWA’s ‘protection mandate’ through international lectures and by addressing UN bodies – see Khouri, op. cit. note 11, p. 439, 447-448.↩︎

50. Lindsay, op. cit. note 1, p. 20; Khouri, ibid, pp. 438-439, acknowledges that UNRWA officials have become recognizable in the global mass media as symbols of the Agency’s responsibility to speak out for the physical protection of the refugees, in particular against Israel.↩︎

51. Lindsay, ibid, ibid.↩︎

52. Ibid, p. 21; Bartholomeusz, op. cit. note 50, p. 467.↩︎

53. Lindsay, ibid.↩︎

54. See ibid, fn. 54. See as well statement of K. AbyZayd at the UN Security Council (2009) – the first time an UNRWA Commissioner General was invited to address the Council – discussing Israel’s ‘systematic destruction’ of civilian facilities in Gaza, as well as the ‘attackers’ failing to distinguish between military targets and civilians’ and ‘indiscriminate violence’– UN Security Council Closed Consultations Session, Statement by UNRWA Commissioner General, Karen AbuZayd, (New York, 27 Jan., 2009), and discussion in Kouri, op. cit. note 11, p. 447.↩︎

55. See Lindsay, ibid & fn. 55.↩︎

56. See ibid, & p. 5, 23.↩︎

57. Daniel Estrin, He Was the Top UN Official in Gaza; An Israeli TV Interview Cost Him His Post, NPR (18 Nov. 2021); Fact Checking UNRWA Claims About Teachers and Education, UN WATCH (7 Nov. 2023). https://unwatch.org/fact-checking-unrwa-claims-about-teachers-and-education/.↩︎

58. See Lindsay, op. cit. note 1, p. 22 & fn. 60, p. 23. See, for example, speech by AbuZayd delivered at the University of Iceland, Reykjavik (Mar. 8, 2007), where she compared the history of the 1948 war with the present Israeli conflict against Hamas, stating that ‘there is a striking historical continuity in the systematic approach to use overwhelming and disproportionate force in the name of security; to separate and exclude Palestinians from the mainstream; to eject them from their land; and to occupy Palestinian land … [T]hat was the sequence of events in 1948. The very same sequence defines Palestinian reality today’ – see K. AbuZayd, ‘Crisis in Gaza and the West Bank’, available at: www.un.org/unrwa/news/statements/2007/IcelandUniv_Mar07.html, as quoted in Lindsay, p. 19, fn. 45.↩︎

59. See ibid, p. 22.↩︎

60. See p. 23 & fn. 65, p. 24; T. Sternthal, ‘Media, UNRWA Silent on Attacked Aid Convoy’, Camera, (Jan. 21, 2009), available at: http://www.camera.org. On UNRWA, as well as other humanitarian organizations, playing the role of Hamas fig leaves – see Bocco, op. cit. note 15, p. 243.↩︎

61. See Proposed Report Language on UNRWA, Proposal to the Senate Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, Regarding Senate Report on the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Bill, 2013, Section: Migration and Refugee Assistance account; funds appropriated to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), pp. 7-8 (on file with the author). See also Kagan, op. cit. note 50, pp. 522-528.↩︎

62. See Proposed Report Language on UNRWA, ibid, p. 8; ‘Lebanon: Seize Opportunity to End Discrimination against Palestinians’, Human Rights Watch, (June 18, 2010), available at: http://www.hrw.org/news/2010/06/17/lebanon-seize-opportunity-end-discrimination-against-palestinians. See also Al-Husseini & Bocco, op. cit. note 49, p. 270.↩︎

63. Statement by Filippo Grandi, Commissioner General of UNRWA, to the Fourth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly (7 Nov., 2013), available at: http://www.unrwa.org, pp. 2-3↩︎

64. See J. Khoury, Egyptian Army Destroys 152 Smuggling Tunnels to Gaza Since July, Haaretz Online, (Sep. 16, 2013); Egypt Destroys Smuggling Tunnels on Gaza Border, Times of Israel, (Nov. 12, 2013); T.G. Lichtenwald, F.S. Perri, Terrorist Use of Smuggling Tunnels, International Journal of Criminology and Sociology, Vol. 2, (2013), pp. 210-226.↩︎

65. Statement by Filippo Grandi, op. ct. note 64, pp. 2-3.↩︎

66. Recall in this regard that the Report of the Secretary General’s Panel of Inquiry on the 31 May 2010 Flotilla Incident (Sep. 2011) determined that: ‘Israel faces a real threat to its security from militant groups in Gaza. The naval blockade was imposed as a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea and its implementation complied with the requirements of international law’ – see para. 82, p. 45, available at: http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/middle_east/Gaza_Flotilla_Panel_Report.pdf.↩︎

67. See Statement by Filippo Grandi, Commissioner General of UNRWA, at the Opening Session of the Advisory Commission, (18 Nov., 2013), available at: http://www.unrwa.org/newsroon/official-statements/.↩︎

68. Opening Statement by the Commissioner General of UNRWA, Filippo Grandi, at the Meeting of the UNRWA Advisory Commission (16 June, 2013), available at: http://www.unrwa.org/newsroon/official-statements/, p. 2, 7.↩︎

69. See ‘Palestine Refugees: An Unresolved Question at the Time of the Syria Crisis’, Lecture by Filippo Grandi, Commissioner General, UNRWA, Pontifical Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, (4 Oct., 2013), available at: http://www.unrwa.org/newsroon/official-statements/.↩︎

70. See ‘Bernadotte: His Legacy to Palestinian Refugees’, Speech by Chris Gunness, UNRWA Spokesperson, on Behalf of the UNRWA Commissioner General at an Event in Jerusalem to Commemorate the Sixty-Fifth Anniversary of the Death of Count Bernadotte, (17 Sep., 2013), available at: http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/, p. 2.↩︎

71. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KrsOLdlcQA.↩︎

72. See UNRWA Area Staff Regulation 1.4 & 1.7, and UNRWA International Staff Regulation 1.4 & 1.7, as quoted in Lindsay, op. cit. note 1, pp. 29-30. With regard to UN Staff Regulstions – see infra note 122.↩︎

73. Note, however, Grandi’s proclamation, emphasizing that although ‘UNRWA is not a political organization’, it is ‘ultimately a political framework that supports development’ (italics added) – see Remarks by Filippo Grandi, op. cit. note 6, p. 3.↩︎

74. See Lindsay, op. cit. note 1, p. 59. Bocco acknowledges that although UNRWA is officially a non-political organization, it has been deeply involved in a highly politicized context from its inception – see Bocco, op. cit. note 15, p. 232.↩︎

75. The General Assembly; the Advisory Commission (AdCom); the UN Secretary General; the host countries; and the donor countries – see Lindsay, ibid, p. 46 & fns. 91-92.↩︎

76. See, for example, E. Benvenisti, C. Gans, S. Hanafi (eds.), Israel and the Palestinian Refugees, (Springer), (2007); Y. Zilbershats, N. Goren-Amitai, Return of Palestinian Refugees to the State of Israel, in R. Gavison (Ed. of Series), Position Papers, The Metzilah Center for Zionist, Jewish, Liberal and Humanist Thought, (Feb. 2011).↩︎

77. See Bocco, op. cit. note 15, p. 231. Bernstam maintains that UNRWA, being unique by design, has been ‘one of the most bizarre humanitarian organizations in human history’ – see op. cit. note 10, p. 2.↩︎

78. Refugees under the protection of the UNHCR are subjected to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, that restricts its application (under Art. 1D) to persons who do not receive protection or assistance from other UN organs or agencies. See also Art. 7 of the Statute of the Office of the High Commission.↩︎

79. See Bocco, op. cit. note 15, p. 232; Bartholomeusz, op. cit. note 50, pp. 454-455, who recognizes that UNRWA’s mandate, therefore, has to be derived implicitly from all relevant resolutions and requests of the UN General Assembly and the Secretary General.↩︎

80. UNRWA is a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly (see Arts. 7(2) and 22 of the UN Charter), established by General Assembly Resolution 302(IV) (Dec. 8, 1949), and started operating in 1950. It is one of only two UN agencies that report directly to the General Assembly – see Bartholomeusz, ibid, pp. 453-454.↩︎

81. See Bocco, op. cit. note 15, p. 232; Bartholomeusz, ibid, p. 456.↩︎

82. See Bartholomeusz, ibid, p. 456, 474. The Commissioner General consults, as appropriate, with the Advisory Commission, established by the General Assembly ‘to advise and assist’ UNRWA’s chief executive; the General Assembly could reconsider the Commissioner General’s decisions.↩︎

83. See Zilbershats & Goren-Amitai, op. cit. note 77, pp. 28-29. See also Al-Husseini & Bocco, op. cit. note 49, pp. 266-267. On the dispute regarding General Assembly Resolution 194(III) (Dec. 11, 1948), interpreted by Palestinians (and Arab host states) as a legitimization of the ‘right of return’ – see Zilbershats & Goren-Amitai, ibid, pp. 24-26, 49-57.↩︎

84. See Zilbershats & Goren-Amitai, ibid, p. 29. See also Bocco, ibid, p. 231.↩︎

85. See Bocco, ibid, pp. 231-232; Zilbershats & Goren-Amitai, ibid, pp. 29-30.↩︎

86. Report by K. Baehr, Executive Secretary of the American Christian Palestine Committee, to the Committee on Foreign Relations, Palestine Refugee Program, Hearings before the Subcommittee on the Near East and Africa of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Eighty-Third Congress, First Session on the Palestine Refugee Program (May 1953), (Government Printing Office, 1953), p.103. See also A. H. Joffe, A. Romirowsky, A Tale of Two Galloways: Notes on the Early History of UNRWA and Zionist Historiography, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 46 (No. 5), (2010), pp. 655–675. Until today, Arab states remain among the most modest contributors to UNWRA. Within the last years, the Agency’s chief executive, ‘being aware of the reasons for Arab reluctance in supporting UNRWA, namely that Arabs feel that the solution is allowing the refugees to return and therefore Western countries should bear the brunt of the budget of UNRWA’, has repeatedly called upon the states of the Arab League to ‘achieve and sustain the longstanding 7.8% target of their collective contributions to UNRWA’s basic programs’ – see D. Kuttab, Filippo Grandi: The New UN Official Intent on Defending Palestinian Refugees Rights and Living Conditions, available at: http://huffingtonpost.com/; Statement by Filippo Grandi, op. cit. note 64, p. 6.↩︎

87. See Zilbershats & Goren-Amitai, op. cit. note 77, p. 30.↩︎

88. See generally Zilbershats & Goren-Amitai, ibid, pp. 43-78.↩︎

89. See ‘Palestine Refugees: An Unresolved Question at the Time of the Syria Crisis’, op. cit note 70, p. 7 (italics added). See also Kushner, The UN’s Palestinian Refugee Problem, op. cit. note 10.↩︎

90. Clearly, the mere requirement of two years of residence was designed to inflate the number of ‘original’ refugees. See, for example, Joan Peters, From time Immemorial – The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine, (1984), pp. 4-5, 18-19, 398-400.↩︎

91. See Proposed Report Language on UNRWA, op. cit. note 62, p. 2.↩︎

92. Initially along the male line, and later also along the female line – see Proposed Report Language on UNRWA, ibid, p. 2. This decision was indirectly endorsed by General Assembly Resolution 37/120, Section I (A/RES/37/120(A-K)), (16 Dec., 1982), that was adopted without a vote; Zilbershats & Goren-Amitai, op. cit. note 77, p. 35; Bartholomeusz, op. cit. note 50, p. 460.↩︎

93. See, for example, Art. 1(C)(3) to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.↩︎

94. This is most significant in Jordan, where the majority of the recipients of UNRWA services has been given Jordanian citizenship – see Proposed Report Language on UNRWA, op. cit. note 62, pp. 5-6, and holds a Jordanian passport – see Bocco, op. cit. note 15, p. 235 & fn. 20, 237; B. Goldstein, B. Muller, ‘Refugee or Not Refugee? No Longer a Question’, American Thinker, (Jul. 13, 2012), available at: http://www.americanthinker.com, state that in Jordan, 82% of UNRWA’s Palestinian refugees do not live in camps and many of them have full Jordanian citizenship.↩︎

95. See ‘UNRWA in Figures’ (as of Feb. 2024), op. cit. note 14.↩︎

96. See discussion in Zilbershats & Goren-Amitai, op. cit. note 77, p. 37. By the end of 2022, the UNHCR documented 29.4 million refugees worldwide (excluding Palestinian refugees administered by UNRWA) – see http://www.unhcr.org/.↩︎

97. The number of refugees who actually fled due to the 1948 war is still under some dispute – see Zilbershats & Goren-Amitai, op. cit. note 77, p. 22; see also Y. Arnon-Ohanna, ‘Line of Furrow and Fire: The Conflict for the Land of Israel, 1860-2010’, (2013), pp. 397-415; Al-Husseini & R. Bocco, op. cit. note 49, p. 266.↩︎

98. That is, nearly 60,000 – see ‘Palestinian Refugee Camps – A New Type of Settlement’, The Economist (12-18 Oct. 2013), p. 36, http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21587846-some-palestinians-want-their-people-abandon-refugee-camps-without-demanding ‘Palestinian Refugee.↩︎

99. Proposed Report Language on UNRWA, op. cit. note 62, p. 3.↩︎

100. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/palestine-papers-documents/4507. See also Bocco, op. cit. note 15, pp. 229-230, 241, regarding Palestinian leadership (as well as some host countries) progressive awareness of the impossibility of return and the adoption of a ‘pragmatic’ interpretation of the notion of ‘return’, as well as the opposition by several refugee camp committees to the possible, gradual transfer of assistance programs from UNRWA to the PA, due to their fear of losing their ‘right of return’.↩︎

101. Zilbershats & Goren-Amitai, op. cit. note 77, p. 41.↩︎

102. Ibid, p. 39.↩︎

103. See Goldstein & Muller, op. cit. note 97, p. 2. UNWRA is also the second largest employer in the PA after the Palestinian government – see Remarks by Filippo Grandi, op. cit. note 6, p. 2. Three quarters of UNRWA’s budget are devoted to local staff salaries – see Al-Husseini & Bocco, op. cit. note 49, p. 268.↩︎

104. See Zilbershats & Goren-Amitai, op. cit. note 77, p. 39; S. J. Rosen, D. Pipes, Lessening UNRWA’s Damage, Jerusalem Post, (9 July, 2012), available at: http://www.jpost.com.↩︎

105. See ‘The Long Journey’: Digitizing the Palestine Refugee Experience, available at: http://www.unrwa.org; the archives were inscribed with UNESCO ‘Memory of the World’ register, which includes collections of ‘outstanding cultural and historical significance’.↩︎

106. See Bocco, op. cit. note 15, p. 236.↩︎

107. ‘The Long Journey’, op. cit. note 108.↩︎

108. Statement by Filippo Grandi, op. cit. note 68, pp. 7-8 (italics added).↩︎

109. See ‘The Long Journey’, op. cit. note 108.↩︎

110. The term follows Bernstam, op. cit. note 10. Khouri also recognizes UNRWA becoming ‘a symbol of Palestinian refugeehood and denied rights’ – see op. cit. note 11, p. 451.↩︎

111. See R. Bowker, Palestinian Refugees – Mythology, Identity, and the Search for Peace, (2003), as quoted in Bocco, op. cit. note 15, p. 236.↩︎

112. See op. cit. note 101. See also Peters, op. cit. note 93, p. 32.↩︎

113. See ibid.↩︎

114. See Bocco, op. cit. note 15, pp. 249-250; Al-Husseini & Bocco, op. cit. note 49, pp. 274-275.↩︎

115. Undoubtedly, former Commissioner General Abu Zayd was particularly involved in political speech and thus had set an example for her predecessor, Filippo Grandi. It was under Abu Zayd’s leadership that UNRWA developed a very explicit focus on protection – see Takkenberg, ibid, p. 258. AbuZayd has continued to proliferate anti-Israeli positions after leaving office – see, for example, H. Chehata, Middle-East Monitor (MEMO) Interview with Karen Abu-Zayd, available at: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/.↩︎

116. Traditional UNRWA donors include the US, the EU and its Member States, Norway, Japan, Switzerland, and Australia (providing collectively over 90% of UNRWA’s budget). Brazil and Turkey have substantially increased their contributions due to extensive UNRWA lobbying. Constant efforts are invested to persuade members of the Arab League to meet their 7.8% target for collective contributions. The US has consistently been the largest donor, currently contributing more than 25% of UNRWA’s total revenue (and in total, since its inception in 1950, has contributed approximately $4.4 billion) – see Proposed Report Language on UNRWA, op. cit. note 62, p. 1.↩︎

117. Obviously, the State of Israel shares in some of these interests – see, for example, Rosen & Pipes, op. cit. note 107.↩︎

118. See, for example, Staff Regulations of the United Nations, UN Doc. ST/SGB/2009/6, (27 May 2009), Regulation 1.2(f) (‘Basic Rights and Obligations of Staff’), that requires that UN staff members ‘shall conduct themselves at all times in a manner befitting their status as international civil servants and shall not engage in any activity that is incompatible with the proper discharge of their duties with the United Nations. They shall avoid any action and, in particular, any kind of public pronouncement that may adversely reflect on their status, or on the integrity, independence and impartiality that are required by that status’.↩︎

119. See Rosen & Pipes, op. cit. note 107, p. 2; A. Zerbisias, Canada Redirects Funding for UN Relief Agency, Toronto Star, (Jan. 15, 2010), available at: http://www.thestar.com/life/2010/01/15/canada_redirects_funding_for_un_relief_agency.html.↩︎

120. Ibid.↩︎

121. See http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/international-development-committee/inquiries/parliament-2010/middle-east/.↩︎

122. See Text of H.Con.Res. 29, as Introduced in House, Expressing the sense of Congress that the United Nations should take immediate steps to improve the transparency and accountability of UNRWA to ensure that it is not providing funding, employment, or other support to terrorism, available at http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-hc29/text, as referred to in Khouri, op. cit. note 11, p. 450.↩︎

123. The ‘Senator Kirk (R-IL) UNRWA Amendment’ was passed in spite of State Department opposition. For the Letter of Opposition to Kirk Amendment from the Deputy Secretary of State, Thomas R. Nides, see http://www.scribd.com/doc/94703915/DepSec-State-Opposes-Kirk-Amdt. The initiative opens the door for the Congress to scrutinize UNRWA’s policies regarding the definition of ‘Palestinian refugee’ – a Background Paper on the amendment, as well as the Proposed Report Language on UNRWA, op. cit. note 62, submitted to the Senate Appropriations Committee are on file with the author; see also J. Schanzer, Status Update: With the Stroke of a Pen, a New Bill in Congress Could Slash the Number of Palestinian Refugees and Open a World of Controversy, Foreign Policy, (May 21, 2012), available at: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/05/21/status_update.↩︎

124. See Daniel Estrin Trump Administration Cuts Funds for Palestinian Aid Program, NPR, 2 Sep. 2018; Criticism of that: Hamas Terror Tunnel Next to UNRWA School in Gaza Destroyed, Foundation for Defense of Democracies (Nov. 10, 2023). https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/11/10/hamas-terror-tunnel-next-to-unrwa-school-in-gaza-destroyed/. See also Statement by UNRWA Spokesperson Sami Mshasha on Implications of funding Shortfall on Emergency Services in OPT, UNRWA, 26 July 2018.↩︎

125. Mark Katkov, Biden Administration Restores Aid to Palestinians, Reversing Trump Policy, NPR, 26 Jan. 2021.↩︎

126. See Al-Husseini & Bocco, op. cit. note 49, p. 269.↩︎

127. Approximately 60% out of a total budget of $1,6 billion in 2022 – see UNRWA Website, at: http://www.unrwa.org.↩︎

128. See Lindsay, op. cit. note 1, pp. 46-47, 59.↩︎

129. D. Rieff, ‘Afterward’, in C. Magone, M. Neuman, F. Weissman (eds.), Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: The Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Experience, (2012), available at: http://www.msf-crash.org/livres/en/book/export/html/2012.↩︎

130. Tara Suter, Biden’s UN Ambassador Calls for ‘Fundamental Changes’ to Resume UNRWA Funding, The Hill, 30 January 2024.↩︎

131. Statement on UNRWA Allegations, Press Statement, US Department of State (26 Jan. 2024); Michael Crowley, Frozen US Spending for UN in Gaza Is Minimal, State Dept. Says, New York Times (30 Jan. 2024).↩︎

132. Ella Joyner, After US, Germany Freeze Aid to UNRWA, Could EU Follow?, DW (29 Jan. 2024).↩︎

133. See, for example, Gaza: Aid Cuts to UN Agency Could Be Felt in Weeks, United Nations, UN News (30 Jan. 2024); Josh Rogin, Biden’s ‘catastrophic’ cutoff of Palestinian Aid is More Than Inhumane, Opinion, The Washington Post (30 Jan. 2024); Zeeshan Aleem, The Biden Administration Is Wrong to Suspend Aid to UNRWA, opinion, MSNBC (29 Jan. 2024) ↩︎

134. Statement by the Secretary General on UNRWA (5 Feb. 2024).↩︎

135. See https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148821; for the text of the final report – see https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/2024/04/unrwa_independent_review_on_neutrality.pdf .↩︎

136. However, on July 19, 2024, the new Labor FM announced that the UK will lift the pause on funding to UNRWA, see https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-restart-funding-to-unrwa; On his statement to the parliament, FM David Lammy observed that although he “was appalled by the allegations that UNRWA staff were involved in the 7th October attacks”, he was “reassured that after Catherine Colonna’s independent review, UNRWA is ensuring they meet the highest standards of neutrality and strengthening its procedures, including on vetting”, and that he acts in line with “partners like Japan, the EU, Norway, Germany, Sweden and France ”.↩︎

137. See https://govextra.gov.il/unrwa/unrwa/ – it is stated that “over 10% of senior UNRWA educators in Gaza (school principals or deputy principals, directors or deputy directors of training centers) were found to be members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad”; see also ‘Israel sent UNRWA list of 100 employees who are Hamas terrorists – report’, The Times of Israel, (11 July, 2024), https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israel-sent-unrwa-list-of-100-employees-who-are-hamas-terrorists-report/, quoting the report by the German daily Bild’s report by Fillipp Piatov (11 July, 2024), https://www.bild.de/politik/ausland-und-internationales/hamas-islamisten-arbeiten-bei-un-deutschland-finanziert-mehr-als-100-terroristen-668e8e49a76a581c61f687e7.↩︎

138. See https://govextra.gov.il/unrwa/unrwa/ – it is stated that “over thirty UNRWA facilities in Gaza have been found to contain terror infrastructures such as tunnel shafts, reflecting a deeply concerning, and possibly systematic, abuse of the status of these facilities for terrorist purposes.”↩︎

139. Due to the many recent revelations regarding UNRWA’s deep connections with the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organizations, there are demands by several senior Israeli government and Knesset officials to completely dissolve UNRWA and even to outlaw it as a terror organization – see, for example, Sam Sokol, Knesset Committee Discusses Trio of Bills Aimed at Shutting Down UNRWA – Proposed legislation would ban UN’s Palestinian aid agency from operating in Israel, remove employees’ legal immunities and brand it a terrorist organization, The Times of Israel, (2 July, 2024), https://www.timesofisrael.com/knesset-committee-discusses-trio-of-bills-aimed-at-shutting-down-unrwa/. ↩︎

• Abstract

  UNRWA is one of the largest UN programs today. Since its inception nearly seventy-five years ago, it has provided relief and humanitarian aid in one of the most complex geopolitical arenas in the world. Nevertheless, the Agency has attracted considerable criticism within the last few decades. Arguably, the Agency has become deeply involved in Middle Eastern politics in a way that might overshadow any substantive accomplishments. Recently, following the Israel-Hamas war that began following the events of October 7, 2023, UNRWA’s involvement with the Hamas terror organization became increasingly evident. It is, therefore, the appropriate time to consider the recent developments in UNRWA’s controversial practices and trends. This paper reviews the main areas of criticism regarding UNRWA’s actual performance and policies, as well as the legal-institutional and political factors that have combined to bring about the current situation, which calls, in particular, for awareness and action on the part of UNRWA’s donor countries.

1. Introduction

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has become one of the largest UN programs, with over 30,000 personnel operating in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. It remains the only UN agency whose area of operation is not global but regional, established to deal with a single group of people. It is also unique in directly providing government-like public services to its beneficiaries.

Since its inception nearly 75 years ago, UNRWA has undoubtedly provided relief and essential public services while operating in one of the most complex geopolitical arenas under the challenging conditions of political uncertainty and physical insecurity. Nevertheless, within the last few decades, it has attracted considerable criticism. Some of UNRWA’s long-standing policies have made it susceptible to political manipulation, particularly by extremist groups, in a way that might overshadow its accomplishments.

Recently, against the background of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, the criticisms regarding UNRWA intensified and included accusations, alongside evidence from the field, of “silent” support and even encouragement and active involvement in terrorist activity. In light of the above, the time has come to examine the controversial practices and trends that characterize the Agency’s activities. In this article, we will review the main areas of criticism of UNRWA’s policy and functioning, as well as the legal-institutional and political factors that have come together to bring about the current situation, which requires, first and foremost, to increase awareness alongside taking determined action from the countries that donate and fund the Agency’s activities.

2. An Active Political Actor

On June 20, 2013, on the occasion of World Refugee Day, Catherine Ashton, the then EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, decided to visit the Rimal Boys’ School in Gaza. Choosing a Gazan elementary school out of the numerous refugee facilities and camps scattered around the world was no coincidence. Hosted by Filippo Grandi, then Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Ashton made it clear that her visit was meant to “underline the situation in Gaza” and to support the work of UNRWA.1 She took that opportunity to share her wish to see the crossings opened. She declared that the EU would continue to be the strongest supporter, providing the required financial aid and “also the political support.”2 Clearly, Ashton’s visit was a significant achievement for UNRWA, resulting from an ongoing, intensive, world-embracing lobbying effort by the UN Agency’s leadership, tailored to attract international public attention to the political problem of Palestinian refugees.

The bloody conflict that broke out in Syria in March 2011 provided an excellent platform for the former UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Grandi to recall “the plight of Palestinian refugees, resulting in a 65-year-old diaspora.”3 In a written interview given by Grandi (March 2013), broadly spread by the UN News Center, he emphasized UNRWA’s endeavors to assist Palestinian refugees residing in Syria while expressing grave concerns that the situation in Syria might divert international attention away from the “ongoing Gaza blockade.”4 This very same point had been made earlier by Grandi at the Conference on Cooperation Among East Asian Countries for Palestinian Development, which was hosted by Japan, where he stated – alongside Salam Fayyad, the then-Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister – that Syria’s brutal war “should not make us forget that for Palestinian refugees, as for other Palestinians, the most powerful obstacle to development continues to be the Israeli occupation.”5 Grandi publicly condemned the “tightening grip” of Israeli policies, while presenting UNRWA as the “international political framework” that “strives to afford a measure of human development amidst the carefully structured and ever-expanding occupation,” calculated, according to Grandi, to “slowly but surely alienate Palestinians from their land and assets.”6

In November 2023, in an address at the joint summit of the League of Arab States (LAS) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, described the realities unfolding in Gaza and the dire humanitarian situation while emphasizing that Israel led to this situation: “The Israeli Forces have pushed over 1.5 million people out of the north of the Gaza Strip. More than 700,000 women, children, and men now live in UNRWA schools and shelters.” Lazzarini failed to mention Israel’s justification for the war following the massacre of Israeli citizens by the Hamas terror organization and residents of Gaza.7 Expressing the urgent need for humanitarian action, he called for a ceasefire, stressed the necessity of a political solution for millions facing life-threatening conditions, and emphasized again that “UNRWA is ready to do its part.”

In other statements delivered to the members of the UN Security Council and the Fourth Committee of the General Assembly, Philippe Lazzarini took the trouble, albeit in one short sentence, to state that “the massacres committed by Hamas on October 7th were shocking.” Still, immediately afterward, he noted the “shock of the unrestrained bombings of the Israeli forces,” without mentioning that the second event is a reaction to the first event.8 Lazzarini emphasized that the level of destruction is unprecedented, and includes attacks on churches, mosques, hospitals, and UNRWA facilities. He also clarified that half of the population of the Gaza Strip was displaced over three weeks, so in his view, what is being done in the Gaza Strip is a crime of “forced transfer” of a population. Lazzarini noted that close to 70% of the dead are children and women and that the number of children killed exceeds the total number of children killed in all conflicts in the world since 2019 every year. He also clarified that the data indicate violations of humanitarian law and cannot be “incidental damage. The crimes of Hamas,” he stressed, “do not absolve Israel of its obligations under humanitarian law […] the current absolute blockade of Gaza is a collective punishment, which is known to have extremely severe and far-reaching consequences.”

Lazzarini also emphasized that “the population of Gaza is over two million, half of them are children, all of them are vital, educated people, who aspire to live a normal life, a family life, raising children and dreaming of a better future,” but now they feel “that they have fallen into a war that is not theirs, and that the world compares them to Hamas. […] An entire population experiences dehumanization.” On top of that, he made it clear that the conflict in Gaza should not divert attention from other actions that Israel is doing outside the Strip: “The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is simmering with tension, as violence has reached unprecedented levels not seen in the last 15 years. Rising settler attacks and movement restrictions have displaced over 800 people in the West Bank since October 7th. The Israeli military is conducting daily incursions into refugee camps.”

These are only a few examples of the overriding, in-built anti-Israel orientation and motivation of the Agency as represented by the respective commissioners-general; they demonstrate the extent to which UNRWA has become an active player involved in Middle-Eastern politics and a powerful tool within the anti-Israel propaganda campaign. Nevertheless, this proficiency in translating humanitarian hardship into political gains has been only one cause of the growing body of criticism directed at UNRWA within the past few decades.9 UNRWA’s actual performance, which includes the breeding of an atmosphere of hatred and violence among Palestinian youth and even the support of terrorist activities, as well as the upholding of the concept of the “right of return” and the determined policy of inflating the number of refugees, have raised concern among experts, commentators, and statesmen alike – as will be exemplified in the forthcoming chapter.10

3. Manipulation of Facilities and Activities

3.1 Improper Use of Facilities

Over the years, there has been criticism regarding improper activities in UNRWA schools and summer camps. In 2000-2001, Palestinian children were reported to have received military training in summer camps that had been organized by the PA using UNRWA facilities.11 In 2001, during an awards ceremony held in a UNRWA facility by a Palestinian NGO, an Agency teacher was reported to have publicly praised suicide bombers; a speech by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who at the time was Hamas’ “spiritual” leader, followed.12 These incidents – the most prominent to come to light – were most likely the tip of the iceberg, given that out of the Agency’s 30,000 personnel, fewer than 150 are international staff. The remaining staff consists almost entirely of locals.13

Indeed, as the journalist Linda Polman acknowledged in her famous book, “The Crisis Caravan: What’s Wrong with Humanitarian Aid,” UNRWA camps have, in fact, introduced the world to the phenomenon now referred to as “refugee warriors”:

James Lindsay, UNRWA’s former Legal Advisor, also concluded in his in-depth 2009 report, “Fixing UNRWA,”15 that UNRWA makes no attempt to remove individuals who support extremist positions; the Agency has taken very few steps to detect and eliminate terrorists from its ranks while taking “no steps at all to prevent members of terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, from joining its staff.”16 Applicants in the West Bank and Gaza are thus exempt from pre-employment security checks, and the Agency does not check up on staff members to see what activities they are engaged in outside office hours.17

The fact that there are UNRWA staff members who support violence, terrorism, and extremist political philosophies does not seem to particularly bother UNRWA’s leadership, as was expressed by former Commissioner General Peter Hansen in 2004:

Moreover, even staff members who come from the refugee camp population who disagree with extremist views can hardly express any disagreement. As Lindsay observes, it is rare for staff members, especially in Gaza or the West Bank, to report or confirm that another staff member has violated rules against political speech, let alone exhibited ties to terrorism. Allegations of improper speech or misuse of UNRWA facilities, therefore, remain difficult to prove, as “virtually no one is willing to be a witness against gang members.”19 This is probably why hardly any incidents of improper use of language or power have come to light, not – as some commentators have presumed – that UNRWA has become more meticulous in screening for the use of its schools.20

This became more evident when video footage came to light, entitled “Camp Jihad,” showing the curriculum of Palestinian children in several UNRWA summer camps, which incited hostility towards Israel and the Jews.21 The documentary that filmed summer programs in the Gaza Strip and Balata refugee camp (north of Nablus) shows young campers being educated about the “Nakba”22 and taught about “the villages they came from,” such as Acre, Ashkelon, Beersheba, Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Nazareth, Safed, and even Tel-Aviv (Sheikh Munis) – all cities within sovereign Israel. Even the names of the teams in the summer camps take on the names of these cities. In the documentary, the director of the Gaza camp explains that these programs are meant to motivate the youngsters “to return to their original village,” and she expresses her deep gratitude to UNRWA for financing the camp. One scene shows a teacher telling a group of young students a story about the “wolf” – that is, the Jews, who brutally expelled their parents from their peaceful sea-side “palaces and villas.” Another teacher tells a group of young campers that “with education and jihad, we will return to our homes; we will wage war.” Evidently, the indoctrinating messages are well absorbed by the youngsters, as several scenes in the documentary show young girls singing, “I will not forget my promise to take back my land” and “We are filled with rage.” A young camper declares to the camera that she “will defeat the Jews,” who are “a gang of infidels” that “don’t like Allah,” while in another scene, a young boy explains that “the summer camp teaches us that we have to liberate Palestine.”

On June 1, 2017, UNRWA found part of a tunnel that passed under two of the Agency’s schools in the Ma’azi camp in the Gaza Strip (the Ma’azi A&B elementary school for boys and the preparatory school for girls). UNRWA complained to Hamas and informed that it intends to seal the tunnel under its compound in the immediate future and that it will not approve the entry of a student or faculty member into the building until the matter is settled. After a thorough inspection of the site, UNRWA confirmed that there are no entry and exit points to the tunnel in the complex and no connection between the tunnel and the schools or other buildings in the complex.23 However, these random complaints on the part of UNRWA do not contradict the fact that UNRWA employed, and still employs, many Hamas operatives in its teams, as evidenced by a recent report by the organization Impact-se.24

The first section of the report details how 13 UNRWA staff members publicly praised, celebrated, or expressed their support for the unprecedented deadly assaults on civilians on October 7. The second section of the study documents the profiles of 18 Hamas terrorists who graduated from UNRWA schools, using material from the Hamas website, which confirms that they died carrying out acts of terror. The research indicates that according to Hamas sources, more than 100 UNRWA graduates served as active Hamas terrorists.

Abnormally, on October 16, 2023, UNRWA accused Hamas, in a post on Twitter, of stealing diesel fuel and medical equipment from the Agency: “UNRWA received reports that yesterday a group of people with trucks purporting to be from the Ministry of Health of the de-facto authorities in Gaza, removed fuel and medical equipment from the Agency’s compound in Gaza City.”25 A few hours later, the tweet was deleted.26

Not just the recent evidence shows that UNRWA staff are affiliated with Hamas. According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Hamas has controlled the UNRWA Gaza staff union since 2009, and many UNRWA employees are affiliated with Hamas.27 UNRWA spokeswoman Tamara Alrifai confirmed to Foreign Policy in 2021 that UNRWA takes action only when its employees are found to hold a political position within Hamas; the organization acts if a staff member is formally affiliated with a terrorist group.28 However, In April 2017, UNRWA engineer Muhammad al-Jamassi was also elected to the Hamas Politburo, but it is unknown whether UNRWA took any action regarding him.29

Considering the totality of the mentioned discoveries, along with old cases of UNRWA facilities being used to shoot at IDF forces in previous rounds of hostilities, it is not surprising that during the recent Israel-Hamas war, a tunnel shaft was discovered in the north of the Gaza Strip near an UNRWA school, which led to an underground tunnel 18 meters deep and about 700 meters long, which served as a central military intelligence asset of Hamas and passed under UNRWA’s central headquarters in the Gaza Strip. From there, the day-to-day activities of the UN Agency were conducted. The electrical infrastructure in the tunnel was connected to the central headquarters building, indicating the electricity supply to the tunnel route through UNRWA assets.30

Later, in a raid on the headquarters that includes the offices of several international humanitarian organizations, uniforms, and combat equipment were found, as well as many weapons, including guns, ammunition, grenades, vests, explosive charges and belts, explosives, and explosive activation systems. In the offices of UNRWA, officials found intelligence measures and documents that indicate that Hamas terrorists also used the offices. It was also exposed that UNRWA disconnected its communication and operating systems, including the recording and photography devices at the site, and also removed its signage in an attempt to disguise the use it allowed Hamas terrorists to make of the Agency’s infrastructure and facilities. During a raid on the UNRWA headquarters in the Rimal neighborhood, a combat compound was found containing ammunition that was taken from the IDF on October 7, including personal weapons, cartridges, grenades, and a machine gun, along with charges, explosive devices, and equipment of Hamas terrorists.31

These revelations join the reports of Israeli abductees who said that UNRWA personnel, including a teacher at the agency, held them. Intelligence reports revealed that UNRWA staff members participated in the terrorist attack on October 7, while others assisted logistically, provided weapons, and more. According to estimates, about 10% of the 12,000 UNRWA staff in Gaza are associated with or related to the terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip – Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – while about half of the workers have a relative active in one of the organizations.32 If there was still doubt, given all the indications that have been accumulating for years, UNRWA not only turns a blind eye to the activities of the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip while using its facilities and resources but cooperates with them on an ongoing basis, and sometimes even mobilizes in practice to support the combat operations.33

3.2 Inappropriate Textbooks

The continued use of inappropriate textbooks in UNRWA schools, particularly in Gaza and the West Bank,34 also remains a source of much controversy, even though reports of various sources have repeatedly raised the issue of a hostile attitude towards Israel and the Jewish people, promoted by the schoolbooks.35 A decade-long research study on the Palestinian curriculum at UNRWA schools examined some 150 textbooks of various subjects taught in grades 1-10, which the PA issued between 2000-2005.36 The study found three fundamental negative attitudes in the presentation of the Jewish/Israeli “other”: denial of the legitimacy of the State of Israel, demonization of the State of Israel, and advocacy for the violent struggle for Palestinian liberation.

According to this research report, PA schoolbooks, for example, do not recognize any Jewish rights or Jewish holy places in Palestine but merely “greedy ambitions.” Generally, the name of the state, “Israel,” does not appear on the maps (or within textual material), and Jewish cities and regions within Israel proper are presented as exclusively Palestinian. Israel’s Jews are not counted among the country’s legitimate inhabitants, which are comprised solely of Israeli Arabs and Diaspora Palestinians. The demonization of Israel presents it as an occupying entity, existing at the expense of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and as a source of many evils committed against the Palestinians and other Arabs. Consequently, no peaceful solution to the conflict has been advocated in PA books used in UNRWA schools. Instead, the books advocate a violent struggle for liberation, not restricted to the West Bank and Gaza, and underlined by the notions of Jihad and Shahadah (martyrdom).

Another research study, which examined 364 schoolbooks across all grades and subjects published between 2013 and 2018, along with 89 teachers’ guides published in 2016-2018, came to the same conclusions and stated that UNRWA, through the education system it maintains, is in practice a full partner in the anti-Israeli and even anti-Semitic indoctrination promoted by the PA in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.37

A 2019 research study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that UNRWA teachers created their own supplementary material during the coronavirus; the materials were found to be rife with incitement to violence and hatred and support for terrorism, such as glorifying the infamous terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who participated in the massacre on the coastal road in 1978, in which dozens of Israelis were murdered. As a result, the IDF launched Operation Litani.38 At the time, UNRWA claimed that the material had been distributed “mistakenly” and that it was put together in a “rush” by UNRWA teachers who “are refugees themselves.” It is clear that by blaming its teachers, UNRWA admitted that the teachers are part of the problem since they cannot distinguish those contents that are against the UN’s standards and should be avoided. Following this incident, UNRWA insisted that the “mistake” had been rectified.39 Yet, a July 2022 report by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found that institutional UNRWA-branded and UNRWA-produced school materials labeled for use in 2022 contained content encouraging Jihad, violence, and martyrdom, as well as promoting antisemitism, conflict discourse, hate, and intolerance.40

A March 2023 joint report by UN Watch and IMPACT-se distributed to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, EU Commissioner Joseph Borrell, German Chancellor Olaf Schulz, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and UNRWA Commissioner-General Lazzarini included dozens of examples of hateful educational content collected from 10 various schools of UNRWA between the years 2021-2023 and intended for the 7th and 9th grades.41 The contents were collected from materials prepared by UNRWA’s education departments and its staff – directors, deputy directors, education experts, and teachers, bearing the agency’s logo. These contents were removed from UNRWA’s digital learning platform, which it claims is the only source of learning materials, but it was found that they were distributed to hundreds of students through various alternative means and studied in the Agency’s classrooms.

The report indicates 133 UNRWA educators and staff members who were found to have encouraged hatred and violence in the media and 82 other teachers and staff members who are involved in producing and distributing hateful content to students. The evidence showed the glorification in the classrooms of the terrorist Dalal Moghrabi as a warrior leader and a hero to be admired, as well as an admired sermon in the fifth grade (September 2022) of Ezz al-Din al-Qassam, as a hero who preached the murder of Jews. Testimonies from the middle school for the children of Al-Ma’azi in Gaza exhibited education about violence, the demonization of Israel, and encouragement for martyrdom; 9th-grade students (December 2022) learned a section on reading comprehension in Arabic on behalf of UNRWA, which glorified the attack on a Jewish bus that was presented as a “barbecue party,” and another text from the UNRWA creative house that was prepared for 9th-grade students who presented Israelis as “sadistic predators” accompanied by harsh graphic descriptions, attached to fictitious texts, of Israelis brutally murdering Palestinians (for example, a “Zionist officer” deliberately shoots a Palestinian fisherman in front of his son, as a fountain of blood erupts from his chest). 5th-grade students at the school in Al-Ma’azi learned that “martyrdom and Jihad are the most meaningful things in life” through vocabulary and grammar exercises in the Arabic language (September 2022). At the middle school in Tel al-Hua in Gaza, as part of a social studies lesson (September 2022) to the 9th graders, the message was conveyed that a violent conflict against Israel is a “divine right.” Another text to the 9th graders spread the blood plot according to which Israel causes cancer in Palestinians through the burial of toxic waste in the West Bank and Gaza. In the middle school in Asma for girls, the students were encouraged to liberate the homeland through the “sacrifice of blood” and Jihad; material for learning the Arabic language for classes at the school in Asma (September 2022) included an exercise encouraging self-sacrifice of one’s life for the homeland as a matter of duty, and a grammar exercise stated that “I will wage Jihad to liberate the homeland,” and “I will not give up an inch of my land.”

Another report revealed that at least 100 Hamas members committing the terror attacks were graduates of UNRWA’s education system; their textbooks include content that encourages antisemitism, glorifies violence, and promotes militant Jihad.42

The educational services provided by UNRWA to Palestinian students – particularly in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but also in neighboring countries – help to propagate a non-peaceful point of view, upholding a political vision of a continued struggle against a delegitimized Israel until its eventual destruction.43 By maintaining the policy of non-involvement in the local curricula taught in its schools44 – a policy that should not be taken for granted in the first place by a UN body45 – as well as by refraining from screening the use of its facilities and by ignoring the “unofficial” activity of its local staff, UNRWA ignored the obvious.46

4. Politicization of Relief

4.1 Self-Proclaimed “Protection Mandate” & Political Advocacy

It is no secret that UNRWA’s work has long crossed the lines of humanitarianism and relief deep into the political realm. Indeed, the acceptance by UNRWA’s leadership of the mission to enhance the political rights of Palestinians, not only refugees, has gradually become a key trend, characterizing the Agency’s activity.47 Particularly since the first intifada (1987), and following the request of the former UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar that UNRWA expands its activities to protect refugees and non-refugees alike “on an emergency basis and as a temporary measure,”48 UNRWA has unilaterally expanded its mandate to include ‘protection’ and to encompass all Palestinians.49

The Agency’s international staff, including its Refugee Affairs Officers (RAOs) in the West Bank and Gaza, who had been nominated to implement UNRWA’s so-called “protection mandate,” became intensively involved in publicity activity – that is, the collection and collation of information on protection issues, and their publication – either through reports or by making this information available to the media.50 Consequently, as Lindsay observes, even when the first intifada ended and the Interim Self-Government Arrangements had been signed,

UNRWA’s endorsement of Palestinian political views was also notable throughout the second intifada (2000). The Agency’s RAOs were replaced by Operations Support Officers (OSOs), whose primary duty was to provide “general assistance” protection, including “observing and reporting.”52 The one-sided positions of UNRWA officials were reflected by their focus on condemning Israeli counter-terrorism efforts in language associated with war crimes. Criticism of Palestinian-initiated attacks was mild and infrequent.53 This trend has continued ever since.

UNRWA officials frequently condemn the IDF’s attacks on terrorists in response to rocket strikes on Israeli civilian targets launched from Gaza as a “disproportionate, indiscriminate, and excessive use of force.”54 For the appearance of balanced reporting, UNRWA commentary would sometimes also mention “the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel” – but as an afterthought, not in terms of war crimes or terrorist attacks, never protesting the bombarding of innocent Israeli civilians.55 In fact, on several occasions, former Commissioner-General Karen Abu Zayd even referred to the continuous firing of Qassam rockets into Israel from Gaza as a legitimate “response” to “military incursions.”56 In May 2021, UNRWA was forced to re-assign its Gaza Director, Mathias Schmale, after he had admitted in a television interview that the Israeli strikes were “very precise,” i.e., not targeting civilians, and Hamas declared him persona non grata in Gaza. In another interview, Schmale was asked about the possibility of tunnels under UNRWA’s central headquarters in the Gaza Strip. Schmale stated that it was indeed proved that a tunnel was found under a school located very close to the headquarters after Israel precisely bombed it. He clarified that during his four years of service in Gaza, many people told him that there were tunnels everywhere. However, he could not state whether the tunnels were under the UNRWA headquarters. However, in any case, according to him, it was a reasonable assumption, considering that a tunnel was found so close to the headquarters.57

The UNRWA leadership’s political position is also reflected in the continuous, unqualified support it provides to Hamas in various international fora, despite its violent methods and declared dedication to eliminating Israel. In the past, Commissioner-General Abu Zayd was particularly active in campaigning devotedly against the West’s isolation of Hamas, calling upon European leaders in particular to engage with the group as a pre-condition for “regaining credibility with Palestinians” and ending “the partisan approach to denouncing violence and to blaming the victims.”58 In the same spirit, UNRWA’s leadership also protested the Quartet’s embargo of the Hamas government, thus openly challenging the formal policies of its primary donors – the USA and the EU – as well as the UN.59 Since 2008, UNRWA has echoed Hamas’ views by keenly criticizing the Israeli blockade of Gaza on humanitarian grounds while at the same time ignoring reports regarding the theft of humanitarian assistance items by the group.60

Indeed, in practice, UNRWA’s so-called “protection mandate” has allowed the Agency to become a fierce advocate for Palestinians in its dealings with Israel. However, the Agency remains nearly silent and indifferent when Arab governments in host countries violate or restrict Palestinian civil rights.61 Such was the case, for example, when almost 400,000 Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait in 1991, despite repeated warnings issued by human rights organizations regarding the large-scale violation of their rights. As well there is the more recent case of the grievous treatment of Palestinians by the government of Lebanon, where Palestinians live, according to Human Rights Watch, “in appalling social and economic conditions” due to far-reaching legal restrictions on their access to the labor market and discrimination under property and title laws.62

4.2 Growing Involvement in Political Speech

As cited earlier, UNRWA’s current leadership follows the path of routinely exploiting every international stage and forum available to delegitimize Israel and its policies. This method has become essential to UNRWA’s extensive global fund-raising campaign. A recent collection of UNRWA’s outgoing chief executive’s pronouncements is illuminating. In his farewell speech before the Fourth Committee of the UN General Assembly in November 2013, Grandi repeated his motto of “profound concern” regarding the international community’s preoccupation with Syria. According to Grandi, it might divert attention from the situation in Gaza, which was “exacerbated by the closure of tunnels, through which many basic commodities were entering”63 – completely ignoring the systematic use of such tunnels by terrorist groups for their massive smuggling operations of illegal arms and ammunition into the Gaza Strip.64 He further condemned, at length, the “stifling restrictions imposed by Israel in the West Bank including East Jerusalem,” as well as settlers’ behavior, the “possible transfer of the Bedouin community,” and the conduct of Israeli military operations.65 No censorship whatsoever was mentioned of Palestinian violence or terrorist activity against Israel and Israeli citizens. “Rockets launched towards southern Israel” were briefly mentioned – not condemned – by Grandi, and only after raising concerns about possible “Israeli military incursions.”

A few days later, at the opening session of UNRWA’s Advisory Commission (AdCom), Grandi suggested that “strengthening the human security of the people of Gaza is a better avenue to ensuring regional stability than physical closures, political isolation, and military action.” To obtain this, according to Grandi, “first and foremost, the Israeli blockade, which is illegal66, must be lifted.”67 At the previous round of the AdCom’s meetings, several months earlier, Grandi blamed “the interests of the Israeli government in sustaining an unresolved situation” and trumping “the real substance of security and stability” in the region, including the fact that “Palestinian leadership remains divided.”68 During a visit to Rio-de-Janeiro to add Brazil to UNRWA’s donor base, Grandi spoke about the Gaza blockade as “one of the harshest occupation measures of modern times” and condemned the “complex web of policies and restrictions” that “thrives under the umbrella of military occupation and has been slowly depriving Palestinians of assets and livelihood.”69

It is no wonder that the style, tone, and example set by UNRWA’s Commissioners-General has impacted other UNRWA officials. Another example was provided by Former UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness, who took advantage of a public event (2013) to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Count Folke Bernadotte in 1948 to condemn Israeli officials who were, according to Gunness, “venerated in the most senior echelons of Israeli public life,” and whose “values and rejectionist attitudes towards the UN sadly are reinforced by repetitious nationalistic mythologizing.”70 “Selective ignorance” was his preferred terminology for describing the attitude of these officials, who, according to Gunness, followed Ben-Gurion’s dismissive attitude towards the UN. Recently, Chris Gunness was interviewed on a podcast called The Electronic Intifada, where he “debunks Israel’s lies” during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war.71

In this regard, it is no surprise that UNRWA’s Area Staff Regulations, as well as International Staff Regulations (and also UN Staff Regulations),72 both necessitate “to avoid any action and in particular any kind of pronouncement which may adversely reflect on their status, or on the integrity, independence, and impartiality which are required by that status,” as well as the engagement “in any political activity which is inconsistent with or might reflect upon the independence and impartiality required by their status,” are easily ignored. After all, if the Agency’s most high-ranking officials disregard their obligation for impartiality, what can be asked – or expected – from the more junior officials, let alone the area staff, made up almost entirely of locals?

Despite repeated statements that UNRWA is not a political organization,73 the Agency is regularly involved in political speech and public pronouncements.74 This is mainly due to the fact that UNRWA lacks outside controls over its chief executive, who receives hardly any political guidance from any of the relevant international bodies that are in a position to provide direction75 and thus effectively enjoy broad authority and freedom of action and speech.

5. Lex Specialis Bypassing International Law

5.1 Defining a “Refugee” and Upholding the “Right of Return”

UNRWA’s activity involves two complex, interrelated conceptual-legal controversies: the definition of a “refugee” entitled to the protection of certain international arrangements and the existence of a so-called “right of return.” A thorough doctrinal investigation into these issues is beyond the scope of this commentary.76 Nevertheless, it is important to note how UNRWA’s very existence and its actual performance have created a sort of lex specialis in the case of Palestinian refugees, thus bypassing existing and internationally accepted legal definitions, requirements, and arrangements, thereby contributing to the complication and misconception of these issues.

UNRWA remains the only UN agency whose area of operation is not global but regional and which deals with a single group of people.77 It is also unique among UN agencies in that it directly provides various government-like public services. Unlike its sister organization, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), mandated in 1950 to coordinate the handling of all refugee communities worldwide, UNRWA was established in that year to deal exclusively with Palestinian refugees, who were excluded from the protection of the UNHCR.78 Furthermore, while the aims and operations of the UNHCR are based on international instruments – mainly the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees – UNRWA was never provided with a specific statute or charter.79 It has operated since its inception under a general mandate, renewed every three years by the General Assembly.80 The latter, however, has been offering little guidance concerning the evolution of the Agency’s mandate.81 It, therefore, remains for the UNRWA Commissioner-General to determine, in good faith, any questions concerning the mandate.82

The decision to establish UNRWA, just a few days after the decision had been taken to establish the UNHCR, was the initiative of Arab countries that feared that the inclusion of Palestinian refugees under the general definition of “refugees” would be interpreted as a waiver of their claim that “return” was the sole solution, and as an implied agreement to resettlement in their territories.83 The creation of a separate, autonomous UN agency thus allowed them to impose limitations on UNRWA’s mandate to provide “temporary assistance,” while the UNHCR’s mandate generally provided for refugees’ rehabilitation and resettlement.84 Indeed, in the following years, the majority of refugees, as well as Arab states, objected to any attempt by UNRWA to facilitate integration into their countries of residence, insisting on the return of refugees to Israel.85 As was acknowledged by Lt. Gen. Sir Alexander Galloway, director of UNRWA in Jordan, in 1952:

UNRWA, which never criticized the refugees or the Arab states for failing its original resettlement and reintegration scheme,87 has consequently developed into a vast welfare agency, providing quasi-governmental services for a huge population of refugees, which has grown more and more dependent on its benefits. It has thus entrenched the idea of return and its misconception as a legal right rather than a privilege or a political claim.88 Today, UNRWA’s leadership does not hesitate to openly advocate the solution of return, as reflected in the words of UNRWA’s outgoing chief executive, who stated recently that,

The fact that UNRWA was established as a distinct arrangement by the General Assembly also allowed for the development of a unique operational definition of a “Palestinian refugee” entitled to the Agency’s services. Based on UNRWA documents rather than any formal UN decision, such a definition deviates from the general definition recognized under international refugee law (as a key for benefitting under UNHCR protection) and was tailored to fit the political interests of those states that initially sponsored the Agency. According to UNRWA’s original definition, a Palestinian refugee was a person whose normal place of residence had been Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948,90 who had lost his home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 war. Controversially, in 1965, UNRWA decided to create an extension of eligibility to the third generation of refugees (that is, to children of persons who were themselves born after 14 May 1948).91

In 1982, the Agency took another far-reaching decision to extend eligibility to all subsequent generations of descendants without any limitation.92 Further deviating from the accepted norms and arrangements regarding refugees worldwide,93 UNRWA also registers as “refugees” those who have acquired citizenship in other countries.94 Given UNRWA’s broad definitions, it is, therefore, no wonder that the current number of Palestinian refugees, according to the Agency’s figures,95 amounts to nearly 6 million – approximately 20 percent of the number of refugees in the entire world96 – whereas the formal number of original refugees who fled Palestine in 1948 was around 700,000-750,000,97 out of whom nearly 5 percent or less are still alive.98 As was stated recently in a report presented to the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, UNWRA’s practice in this regard is,

Even PA President Mahmoud Abbas has openly acknowledged in the past that,

5.2 Mythologizing “Refugeeism”

Whereas the mission of the UNHCR is generally to reduce the number of refugees in the world, UNRWA has brought about an exponential increase in the number of Palestinian refugees. More than anything else, its actions have underlined the issue of Palestinian refugees as a significant, far-reaching, practical political concern, not simply a humanitarian one.101 In this, as acknowledged by Zilbershats and Goren-Amitai, the UN Agency serves as an agent, fulfilling “the political desire of the Arab states and the Palestinians to preserve, expand, and perpetuate the refugee problem in order to avoid the need to recognize the State of Israel as a Jewish state.”102 Others have also acknowledged the financial aspect of the situation, pointing to the fact that a decrease in the number of refugees would result in the PA losing hundreds of millions of dollars in annual aid.103

Furthermore, UNRWA’s ideological insistence on the “right of return,” combined with its policy of inflating the number of refugees, greatly contributes to the strengthening of the sense of nationalism and solidarity underlined by feelings of injustice, cultivating a collective memory based on a mentality of victimhood.104 Over the years, the Agency’s leadership plainly – and actively – supports this mindset, as demonstrated when the former Commissioner-General showed pride in unveiling UNRWA’s newly digitized archives under the title: “The Long Journey: Digitizing the Palestine Refugee Experience.”105 According to UNRWA’s website, these archives, funded by the governments of Denmark and France, Palestinian NGOs, and private sector partners, consist of “over half a million negatives, prints, slides, films and videocassettes covering all aspects of the life and history of Palestine refugees from 1948 to the present day.” Describing the UNRWA archives, considered since before their digitization to be part of Palestinian national heritage,106 Grandi stated that,

Notably, UNRWA organized and launched a traveling exhibition based on the new archives; after being presented in the Old City of Jerusalem, UNRWA scheduled the exhibition to go on tour, starting in January 2014, to key cities in the Agency’s areas of operation, as well as “centers of culture and politics in Europe and North America.”109

Such activity exemplifies UNRWA’s decisive role in constructing Palestinian political identity and in mythologizing refugeeism,110 as has been suggested by R. Bowker:

Indeed, in recent years, more and more commentators have raised concerns that UNRWA’s determined policies, in fact, overwhelm voices coming from within Palestinian society – of those who wish their people to abandon the refugee camps without claiming return. An article in “The Economist,” from a decade ago, noting that almost 70 percent of West Bank refugees already live outside refugee camps, quotes a camp psychologist admitting that “people don’t even dream anymore of returning.”112 Also, Palestinian leaders privately confess that even if there were a deal with Israel, “the refugees and their offspring will never return en masse to Israel.”113 Thus, by treating Palestinian refugees as a collective socio-political group, UNRWA overlooks differing attitudes of adaptation to changing political contexts and economic circumstances and studies that show how new “pragmatic” discourses among Palestinians and new symbolic meanings attached to the “right of return” have emerged.114

6. Donor Countries’ Awareness & the Quest for Accountability

Within the last few decades, under the orchestration of impassioned commissioners-general,115 the vast, quasi-governmental machinery into which UNRWA has evolved has made itself highly susceptible to political manipulation. It has become an active agent in reaching out to international actors and audiences and an effective tool in manipulating public opinion worldwide.

Evidently, several legal-institutional and political factors have combined to bring about this situation. The “original sin” of creating a unique, “temporary” agency tailored to meet certain political demands without providing a specific statute or an accountability framework left UNRWA’s leadership with unparalleled broad discretion and authority to shape the Agency’s mandate and implement its policies. Furthermore, because the Agency’s funding system is guaranteed almost exclusively by voluntary contributions from donor countries, it has to constantly develop sophisticated communication skills to market its mission and secure its funding. This mission has become more and more difficult since the 1990s.

Apparently, crucial policy decisions taken throughout the years and bearing far-reaching political consequences, such as those regarding the definition of the Agency’s beneficiaries that resulted in the relentless inflation in the number of Palestinian refugees or the adoption of initiatives within a so-called, never-clearly-stated “protection mandate,” have inflicted tremendous, steadily growing budgetary constraints on the Agency. Eventually, the international community has to shoulder the burden of these costs.

UNRWA’s leaders have thus become occupied with efforts to break the vicious circle created by the Agency’s own policies – either by convincing donor countries to enlarge their contributions or campaigning to persuade other countries to join its donor base.116 Clearly, within these efforts, criticizing the conduct of camp residents, host authorities, or extremist groups for the poor humanitarian conditions of the refugees would lead to their disenfranchisement with UNRWA and would badly affect local refugee communities, and is therefore not an option. However, as was demonstrated earlier, “naming and blaming” Israel definitely is. Mythologizing refugeeism and upholding the “right of return” further validate the Agency’s raison d’être.

Altogether, such activities are not always compatible with the interests and political positions of moderate Palestinian leadership; they obstruct pragmatic efforts to mediate the positions of Israelis and Palestinians. On the other hand, UNRWA is a vital source of income and a caretaker of unstable factions within Palestinian society.

Going against its policies would probably cause much political unrest and be perceived as defying the cause of Palestinian refugees.117 In this way, the status quo, which allows a growing political involvement by UNRWA, mostly plays into the hands of extremist groups such as Hamas, whose position and practices the Agency has been backing in international fora since it took over the Gaza Strip.

Within the last few years, however, there has been a growing awareness within political, diplomatic, and academic circles regarding UNRWA’s policies and the Agency’s growing tendency toward active political involvement. This has attracted attention to UNWRA’s lack of accountability and the unfettered freedom of speech enjoyed by its executive officers, defying the fundamental norms of objectivity and neutrality that oblige UN officials as international civil servants.118 Consequently, some donor states have not remained indifferent.

In January 2010, the government of Canada decided to cut off funding to UNRWA, redirecting its contributions to the PA to “ensure accountability.”119 In December 2011, the Dutch foreign minister declared its government’s intention to “thoroughly review” its policies toward UNRWA.120 The British parliament’s International Development Committee has also launched an inquiry into UNRWA funding within its assessment of the United Kingdom’s development work in the Middle East.121 In March 2009, in the U.S. House of Representatives, 22 Democrats and Republicans criticized UNRWA for having violated the requirement of neutrality and assisting Hamas.122 Furthermore, in May 2012, a significant amendment was passed by the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee and incorporated into the Fiscal Year 2013 Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Bill, directing the Secretary of State to report to the Committee on the current number of UNRWA beneficiaries in different categories (“original” 1948 refugees; their descendants), as well as the extent to which the provision of UNRWA services “furthers the security interests of the United States and of other U.S. allies in the Middle East.”123 Recently, Under the leadership of former U.S. President Donald Trump, the United States cut funding to UNRWA in 2018, labeling the agency “irredeemably flawed.”124 However, President Biden unconditionally resumed funding UNRWA in 2021.125

Such initiatives testify to the fact that UNRWA’s position as a stabilizing, “peace servicing” factor in the region and as a guardian of refugee interests126 is no longer taken for granted in the eyes of Western donor countries. They also reflect the growing quest for accountability and acknowledgment of donor countries’ responsibility to scrutinize UNRWA’s policies to ensure the strict application of their tax-payer money toward relief and humanitarian causes.

7. Conclusion

Seventy-five years after its establishment, UNRWA still has no settled accountability framework – let alone a broadly accepted, defined mandate – that would enable the international community to scrutinize and direct the Agency’s daily performance. This situation allows its leadership, as well as interested parties – first and foremost the Palestinian leadership and some Arab (host) countries – to manipulate this vast UN agency, mainly sponsored by goodwill contributions of the international taxpayer. The Agency’s relatively powerful influence on Palestinian educational activities, as well as the fact that more than half of its general budget is dedicated to education,127 further highlight UNRWA’s problematic educational role in the Middle East conflict. It demands urgent, ongoing scrutiny on the part of donor countries – most of which are Western democracies – to ensure that their contributions are not being misused to support terrorism or to incite violence and hatred.

As commentators have observed in the past, donor countries, particularly those with the most influence on UNRWA’s leadership, need to persuade the Agency to strictly limit its actions and public pronouncements to humanitarian issues.128

UNRWA is funded by the voluntary contributions of a relatively narrow donor base. Therefore, Western donor countries are likely in the most effective position to influence and direct UNRWA leadership to prevent the humanitarian Agency from being further exploited for the promotion of extremist agendas, the backing of terrorist groups, and the growing involvement of its officials in political speech and public pronouncement. As one commentator put it recently, paraphrasing Clausewitz: “Humanitarianism, not just war, has now become the continuation of politics by other means.”129 Indeed, if we are to judge according to some of UNRWA’s activities and policies within the last few decades, accountable, restrained leadership and more determined action on the part of donor states are required in order to prevent the Agency from further exemplifying this.130

In January 2024, following the revelations on the ground and the intelligence regarding the involvement of UNRWA and its staff in terrorist activities and cooperation with Hamas elements, the central donor countries, led by the United States and Germany,131 as well as the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Finland, and Austria,132 decided to suspend the aid funds transferred to UNRWA. This unprecedented step could completely paralyze the Agency’s activities.133 Following this, UN Secretary-General Guterres announced that, in consultation with General-Commissioner Lazzarini, and in response to the latter’s request, he appointed an independent review team “to examine whether the agency is doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality and to provide an answer to the accusations regarding the serious violations.”134 The former French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, was appointed as the head of the team, which cooperated in the examination with three research institutes: the Raoul Wallenberg Institute from Sweden, the Michelsen Institute from Norway, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights. This, at the same time as the examination by the UN inspection bodies of the concrete accusations leveled against the involvement of 12 UNRWA staff members in the October 7 Hamas attack. The so-called Colonna Independent Review Panel Report on UNRWA was released on February 2024, providing 50 recommendations and noting that “Israeli authorities have yet to provide proof of their claims that UN staff are involved with terrorist organizations.”135 Following the report’s release, many UNRWA donor countries hurried to lift the pause on their funding to the Agency.136

Notwithstanding the conclusions of the Colona Report, recently, it was reported that Israel, based on new revelations, has submitted UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Lazzarini a letter listing in detail (names, ID, and military ID numbers) more than 100 UNRWA workers who are allegedly Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, stating that the names included are part of a “broader list” of the Agency’s workers affiliated with these terrorist organizations.137 Also, there are ongoing reports regarding the widespread military use by Hamas terrorists of UNRWA’s facilities.138

Because of the nature of the problematic revelations and the harsh criticisms that have been leveled against UNRWA at various levels for many years, the examination that the UN Secretary-General initiated was not even in the scope of “too little and too late” but rather a camouflage and a diversion of the attention of the international community, while deliberately ignoring completely the root of the problem and the seriousness of the accusations involved in UNRWA’s activities and conduct. The nature of the allegations and deficiencies indicates that the examination is not a matter for various human rights institutes, political parties, and close associates but rather for objective, independent experts and for an examination of the entirety of the parties involved, including the conduct of the UNRWA Commissioners-General and even of the UN Secretary-General himself, who bears overall responsibility for the activities of UN agencies.

An effective investigation that may bring about a fundamental change in the Agency’s conduct while setting clear standards and establishing sustainable supervision and control mechanisms can only be carried out by qualified and objective national bodies on behalf of the donating countries, both at the military and intelligence level and at the criminal legal level, and only then by experts in providing humanitarian aid.

Moreover, this examination must consider, once and for all, the inherent problems involved in the activity of a UN agency of huge dimensions, that by its very existence, upholding the “right of return,” it practically negates the existence of a sovereign UN Member State – Israel, and paradoxically perpetuates one of the fundamental factors of the violent ongoing conflict, whose bloody results she seeks to alleviate through the humanitarian aid on whose behalf she works.

It is yet unclear what part UNRWA will be able to take, if any, within future arrangements after the present war in the context of rebuilding Gaza and overseeing the humanitarian aid that will presumably be provided to the residents of the Gaza Strip. What is obvious, however, is that UNRWA has lost its credibility and even its legitimacy in the eyes of many of the main stakeholders in the region, in particular within Israel.139 Thus, if the Agency does not take serious steps to regain its trustworthiness, first and foremost, by pulling the hands of its workers and leadership from any terrorist and political activity, it is hard to see it integrating and acting meaningfully and authoritatively within any future civil administration arrangements. Unfortunately, deeply rooted in past conceptions, and judging by the recent slight steps taken by the UN Secretary-General and UNRWA Commissioner-General against the background of the severe allegations regarding the conduct of the Agency, it seems quite obvious that neither UNRWA nor the UN can lead the profound reforms required. It, therefore, remains the primary responsibility of UNRWA’s central donor countries to take prompt action in terms of determined tight supervision over the Agency’s field and political activity, as well as their strict demand for accountability on behalf of its workers.