Since the October 7 massacre, numerous reports have surfaced, revealing links between Hamas and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), particularly in Gaza. These allegations range from UNRWA staff and students openly expressing support for Hamas on social media to direct involvement in terrorism. One Israeli hostage claimed he was held captive in the home of an UNRWA teacher—a father of ten—who provided him with only minimal food and medical care.
For years, research institutions, including one I have worked with, have monitored UNRWA’s operations. Their findings indicate that many members of Hamas’ Nukhba Force—the unit responsible for the October 7 attack—along with other Hamas operatives involved in the massacre, are either UNRWA employees or alumni of its schools. This is not surprising, considering the historical precedent: members of the Palestinian militant group Black September, responsible for the 1972 Munich massacre, had similar backgrounds.
One of the senior terrorists killed in the recent Gaza conflict was Jawad Abu Shamala, Hamas’ Economy Minister, who previously worked as a teacher at an UNRWA school in Khan Yunis. Another UNRWA educator, Sara A-Dirawi, posted a video on Facebook on October 7, showing Hamas gunmen patrolling Israeli streets and firing at vehicles. She captioned it with a Quranic verse appearing to justify the attack: “For we will surely come to them with soldiers that they will be powerless to encounter, and we will surely expel them therefrom in humiliation, and they will be debased.”
For many, it is difficult to comprehend a connection between UNRWA and Hamas. The prevailing perception is that UNRWA is a UN-led humanitarian agency run by well-meaning Westerners. In reality, this image is misleading. UNRWA operates as a unique entity within the UN system, with its mandate renewed every three years by the UN General Assembly, yet without direct oversight from the broader UN framework. Today, UNRWA functions as a Palestinian institution under a UN banner, funded primarily by Western nations. Nearly all its employees—99%—are Palestinian. Before the Palestinian Authority’s establishment, UNRWA was the largest employer of Palestinians.
UNRWA’s very existence is unusual. Founded in 1949 after the Arab-Israeli War, its mission was to provide temporary shelter, healthcare, and welfare services to Palestinian refugees. A year later, the UN created the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to manage all global refugee crises. However, due to pressure from Arab states, Palestinian refugees were kept under UNRWA’s exclusive jurisdiction—making it the only UN refugee agency dedicated to a single population.
Originally intended as a short-term entity, UNRWA was expected to facilitate the resettlement of Palestinian refugees within host countries, much like similar agencies did elsewhere. For example, a temporary agency created to aid Korean refugees after World War II was disbanded within a few years. However, the situation in the Middle East proved more complex. Palestinian refugees refused integration into host nations, fearing that doing so would mean accepting the outcome of the 1948 war—a position they maintain to this day. Host countries also rejected their resettlement, arguing that doing so would undermine the Palestinian “right of return.”
At its inception, UNRWA had good intentions, with funding, personnel, and employment initiatives. However, its core mission—resettling refugees—has failed entirely. Over time, eligibility criteria for refugee status expanded significantly. Initially, only those who lost their homes and livelihoods in 1948 qualified. Later, their children were included, and by 1982, refugee status became inheritable across generations. As a result, even great-grandchildren of the original refugees are considered refugees today.
Unlike global refugee protocols, which remove refugee status once citizenship is granted, Palestinians remain classified as refugees even after acquiring nationality elsewhere. For instance, supermodel Bella Hadid, a multimillionaire with U.S. citizenship, is still officially considered a Palestinian refugee. In Jordan, millions of Palestinians hold full Jordanian citizenship yet retain refugee status under UNRWA’s framework, defying international norms.
Of the 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza, 1.6 million are registered as refugees with UNRWA. Most were born and raised in Gaza, as were their parents and grandparents. Yet they continue to claim refugee status from a war that ended over 70 years ago.
As a result, UNRWA’s population has ballooned from 700,000 refugees in 1949 to nearly 6 million in 2022. This growth, sustained by UNRWA’s policies, has transformed it into a billion-dollar organization, deeply embedded in Palestinian society. It manages schools, healthcare, welfare services, and infrastructure across 58 refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
Providing medical aid and basic necessities is one thing, but UNRWA’s primary focus—education, which consumes 60% of its budget—raises significant concerns. UNRWA’s schools cultivate a Palestinian identity rooted in perpetual refugeehood and rejection of Israel’s existence. Their curriculum does not focus on the borders of 1967 but rather on a return to pre-1948 Palestine. Israel is erased from maps, referred to only as a “Zionist entity,” and depicted as an enemy rather than a neighboring country. Peace is dismissed as weakness, while violent jihad and martyrdom are glorified.
The consequences of this indoctrination are tangible.
In July 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and U.S. President Bill Clinton met at Camp David in an effort to reach a two-state solution. Israel offered nearly the entire West Bank and all of Gaza, along with control over East Jerusalem—effectively ending military occupation and eliminating settlements within the proposed Palestinian state. However, Arafat rejected the offer outright. Clinton’s administration documented that Palestinian negotiators refused to make reciprocal concessions. Their primary demand was the “right of return,” which, if granted, would have turned Israel into an Arab-majority state. Years later, Mahmoud Abbas rejected an even more generous proposal from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on the same grounds.
The insistence on this “right of return” reveals that Palestinian leadership has never accepted a genuine two-state solution. Instead, their vision entails an Arab-majority state in the West Bank and Gaza, alongside an Arab-majority Israel.
UNRWA is central to sustaining this narrative. It not only perpetuates refugee status indefinitely but also legitimizes violence against Israel through its education system. Take, for example, Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon who led the 1978 Coastal Road massacre, killing 38 Israelis, including 13 children. Today, she is revered as a national hero. Palestinian textbooks dedicate entire chapters to her “martyrdom,” portraying her attack as an act of heroism. These same textbooks are used in UNRWA schools, which educate over half of Gaza’s children.
Journalist David Bedein, who has extensively studied UNRWA, interviewed students from its schools in 2013. Their testimonies were chilling:
- “They teach us that the Zionists are our enemy and we must fight them.”
- “I’m ready to stab a Jew and run them over.”
- “Peace is weakness. Jihad is the way to justice.”
UNRWA, instead of rehabilitating refugees, has institutionalized war propaganda, creating successive generations committed to erasing Israel. This ideological conditioning directly contributed to the October 7 attack and countless previous acts of terror. The agency has functioned as an incubator for extremism while enjoying international legitimacy.
Now, as war devastates Gaza, the conversation once again turns to reconstruction. But history has shown that rebuilding Gaza is futile without addressing the ideological underpinnings of the conflict. Whether controlled by Fatah, Hamas, or Islamic Jihad, the core issue remains unchanged: two-thirds of Gaza’s residents still see themselves as “temporary” refugees rather than permanent residents.
For any real progress toward peace, both sides must abandon maximalist demands. Those who call for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank due to the cycle of violence must also demand that Palestinians relinquish their “right of return” and dismantle the institutions perpetuating their victimhood. If Gaza’s future residents are ever to invest in their homeland, they must first believe that their future lies there.
Photo Credit: Majdi Fathi/TPS