Germany announced it would be freezing funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a body specifically dedicated to Palestinian refugees, amid reports it has distributed antisemitic material, incited violence, and had alumni who participated in the October 7 atrocities in Israel.
Berlin has contributed nearly a billion dollars to UNRWA in the last five years, making it the single largest donor to the agency, which has come under renewed scrutiny since the Israel-Hamas war began for its record of failing to prevent foreign aid from falling into the terror group’s hands.
“UNRWA is not making a contribution to a peaceful solution,” Max Lucks of the Green Party said. “Not a single cent from Germany should reach teachers who glorify the terror of Hamas.”
“[T]here cannot be a status quo ante with UNRWA,” Falko Drossman of the left-leaning Social Democratic Party said, calling for “a new initiative” when it comes to providing aid to Palestinians.
Last Tuesday, the European Union similarly moved to withhold 39 million euros from dozens of Palestinian non-profits, including UNRWA, demanding the groups provide “procedures and tools used to enforce the contractual obligations stemming from the restrictive measures and anti-incitement clauses.” At least two of these NGOs have been accused by an official of engaging in “incitement of hatred,” the Irish Times reported last Thursday.
Switzerland’s federal council undertook a similar process freezing 600,000 euros until nearly a dozen Palestinian non-profits “carry out an in-depth analysis of the compliance of these organizations’ communications with the FDFA’s Code of Conduct and anti-discrimination clause.”
Since Hamas invaded Israel in early October and massacred over a thousand people, reports have emerged which suggest that at least 100 terrorists who participated in the attacks were graduates of UNRWA-run institutions, and over a dozen educators within the system celebrated the attacks on social media.
“Allah is Great, Allah is Great, reality surpasses our wildest dreams,” wrote Osama Ahmed, a UNRWA teacher in Gaza, in a characteristic Facebook post publicized by UN Watch, a watchdog organization, in its report released in early November entitled, “UNRWA: Hate Starts Here.”
The report documents numerous senior-ranking members of the organization gloating about the October 7 atrocities, including Rawia Helles, the director of a training center in Khan Younis, a town in the southern Gaza Strip. Helles applauded the depraved acts of Palestinian terrorists, calling one operative a “hero” and “prince” for his actions. She was also featured in a UNRWA appeal on YouTube in October, raising awareness about the organization’s work.
Mohammad Adwan, an English teacher within a UNRWA-funded institution in Rafah, justified the Hamas attack against “a people [Jews] that Europe wanted to get rid of.”
“We have owned this land for thousands of years. Our ancestors were the ones who planted its olive trees for hundreds of years until a people came that Europe wanted to get rid of, so they sent them to occupy our homes and displace our ancestors with massacres,” Adwan wrote four days after the Hamas invasion. “What we do is resistance, regaining our rights and defending our land, and what they do is called occupation and colonialism (I think the West understands this word well).”
As U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley led an effort to cut U.S. funding to UNRWA after reports emerged that schools run by the organization were distributing antisemitic books to school children. The funding was renewed under President Biden.