a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) run elementary school for boys in Gaza. At night the headmaster, who doubled as a science teacher, worked as the lead rocket builder for the Palestinian terrorist group, Islamic Jihad. This news was revealed after the Israelis struck a weapons factory in Gaza last week and killed al-Qiq. Israel has long accused the UN of empowering Palestinian terrorists. Below, we detail several links between the UNRWA and terrorism.



The links to terrorism by the well-respected teacher come not only from Israeli Intelligence but the terrorists themselves. According to a Reuters report Hamas hailed him as a martyr who led the Saraya Al-Quds brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad. The family of the teacher/terrorist have denied any connection between terrorism and Awad, but his house was found decorated with Islamic Jihad posters. In the funeral procession, Qiq's body was covered in an Islamic Jihad flag.

The UNRWA was established in 1949 by the United Nations to provide assistance to the Palestinian refugees. The UNRWA's mission is to provide education, health, relief and social services. In 2003, the UNRWA employed a staff of 24,000, with 90% coming from the Palestinian refugee community. While the UNRWA asks local governments in several countries to review employment applications for criminal or terrorist connections, the Agency has no system in Gaza or the West Bank. 

The UNRWA offered the following explanation of how they ensure that they do not employ terrorists, "Unlike governmental bureaucracies, UNRWA does not possess the capacity or the mandate to conduct background security checks on prospective staff. It therefore relies on its staff rules and regulations to ensure that relevant standards of staff integrity, independence and impartiality are met." In other words, the UNRWA does no screening and can ignore "suspected" associations of potential employees.

Avi Beker discovered some early UN terrorist connections in an article from the International Herald Tribune, "In October 1982, UNRWA released a comprehensive report, which described in great detail how the “educational” institution at Sibliun near Beirut, which was under UNRWA supervision, was in reality a training base for PLO terrorists. This report noted that for the previous two years the camp had been under the total control of the PLO which, completely contrary to UNRWA’s official policy, had turned it into a military installation complete with arms warehouses, and that it had been used in supplying military training in the use of weapons and explosives to the members of the camp".  

An Israeli National News report revealed UNRWA connections to terrorism throughout the year of 2002:

• In February, Ala Muhammad Ali Hassan, a Tanzim member, confessed to having carried out a sniper shooting from the school run by UNRWA in the al-Ayn refugee camp near Nablus. He also told his interrogators that bombs intended for terrorist attacks were being manufactured inside the UNRWA school's facilities.
• In August, Nidal Nazzal, a Hamas member and ambulance driver employed by UNRWA, confessed to transporting weapons and explosives in an UNRWA ambulance. He said he had taken advantage of the freedom of movement he enjoyed as part of his UNRWA job to transmit messages among Hamas members in various PA-controlled towns.
• In September, Nahd Attala, a senior official of UNRWA in Gaza, revealed that in June-July 2002, he used his UNRWA car for the transportation of armed Fatah members on their way to carry out a missile attack against Jewish communities. In addition, Nahd said he used an UNRWA car to transport a 12-kg. explosive charge for his brother-in-law, a Fatah member.
• In December, an Israeli intelligence report indicated that numerous UNRWA facilities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza had been used by Palestinian terrorists as meeting grounds and for weapons storage.

Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA), the ranking Democratic member of the House Committee on International Relations wrote a letter in 2002 to the Secretary-General of the UN expressing a number of concerns over the UNRWA. Passages from the letter include these statements:

• Terrorists based in UNRWA refugee camps have engaged in a systematic and deliberate campaign of terror aimed at inflicting as many casualties as possible on the Israeli population. As a result of Israel's Operation Defensive Shield, for example, it has come to light that the Jenin camp alone has produced 23 suicide bombers responsible for the deaths of 57 Israelis and the wounding of some 1000 others. Camp-based terrorist activity reportedly includes the production of bombs, storage of  weaponry, and recruitment of personnel.
• Over the years, you have stressed, and the UN Security Council has affirmed, the importance of maintaining the civilian and humanitarian nature of refugee camps and the danger of permitting armed elements into refugee camps.  UN Security Council Resolution 1208 (1998) affirms the "unacceptability of using refugee camps and other persons in refugee camps...to achieve military purposes." UNSCR 1296 (2000) calls upon the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council situations where "camps are vulnerable to infiltration by armed elements and where such situations may constitute a threat to international peace and security."  I am not aware that any such report has been filed regarding UNRWA camps.
• Your report to the Security Council dated April 13, 1998 concerning violence in Africa (UN Document S/1998/318) appropriately urges that "refugee camps...be kept free of any military presence or equipment, including arms and ammunition" and that "the neutrality of the camps...[be] scrupulously maintained."
• Your reasoning in this regard is unassailable: "Not separating combatants from civilians allows armed groups to take control of a camp, and its population, politicizing their situation and gradually establishing a military culture within the camp. The impact on the safety and security of both the refugees and the neighboring local populations can be held hostage by militias that operate freely in the camps, spread terror, press-gang civilians, including children, into serving their forces....(B)lured lines between the civilian and military character of camps expose civilians inside to the risk of attack by opposing forces where camps are perceived to serve as launching pads for renewed fighting."
• I am very concerned that UNRWA officials have not only failed to prevent their camps from becoming centers of terrorist activity, but have also failed to report these developments to you. Under the circumstances, it is difficult to escape the painful conclusion that UNRWA, directly or indirectly, is complicit in terrorism.

Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA), chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare prepared a report in 2002. This report documented how "buildings and warehouses under UNRWA supervision are allegedly being used as storage areas for Palestinian ammunition and counterfeit currency factories." The Task Force's 2002 report also noted that UNRWA hosts summer camps in martyrdom for young terrorists-in-training.

The U.S. General Accounting Office discovered a number of disturbing failures in 2003 about the UNRWA and its connection to terrorism. During a field visit to Gaza, the Israelis informed the U.S. officials that at least 16 UNRWA staff members had been arrested for various security-related crimes. Three UNRWA staff had recently been convicted of crimes including, throwing fire bombs at a public bus, possessing explosives material for bomb-making and transferring chemicals to assist bomb-makers.

In 2003, the House International Relations Committee expressed its outrage over credible reports that UNRWA facilities had been used for terrorist training and bases for terrorist operations, with little attempt by the UNRWA to stop or oppose such attacks or alert relevant law enforcement authorities about such terrorist activities. The committee  went on to express deep concern over the textbooks and educational materials used in the UNRWA educational system that promote anti-Semitism, the denial of the existence and the right to exist of Israel, and that exacerbate stereotypes and tensions between the Palestinians and Israelis.

In 2004, Peter Hansen, Commissioner-General of the UNRWA told CBC TV, "Oh I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don't see that as a crime. Hamas as a political organization does not mean that every member is a militant and we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another".

In 2004 a Reuters reporter captured the Palestinian terrorists committing an act of terrorism and using UN ambulances to escape out of the area. The terrorists in the film murdered six Israeli soldiers.


Michelle Malkin reported additional information about the use of UN ambulances, "According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (CSS), senior UNRWA employee Nahed Rashid Ahmed Attalah confessed to using his official U.N. vehicle to bypass security and smuggle arms, explosives, and terrorists to and from attacks. He was in charge of distributing food supplies to Palestinian refugees. Nidal 'Abd al-Fataah 'Abdallah Nizal, a Hamas activist, worked as an UNRWA ambulance driver and admitted he had used an emergency vehicle to transport munitions to terrorists."

Researcher Arlene Kushner made the following discovery in 2004, "The overwhelming predominance of Hamas-affiliated individuals within the population of teachers hired by UNRWA is particularly troublesome because of their potential influence on an entire generation of refugee children, i.e., descendants of refugees".

Certain members of Congress have not kept their head in the sand and have demanded action from the State Department only to be met with a "wait and see" attitude. On May 4, 2006, Congressman Kirk, along with Tom Lantos (D-CA) introduced H.R. 5278, the UNRWA Integrity Act. This bill calls for an outside independent audit of UNRWA's $400 million annual budget, a fourth of which is contributed by the United States. Congressman Kirk revealed that UNRWA does not check to determine if recipients of humanitarian aid are terrorists, and that there has never been an outside audit of UNRWA's finances.

Representatives Mark Kirk (R-Ill) and Steven R. Rothman (D-NJ) are greatly concerned with American taxpayer funds being allocated to the UNRWA. On September 27 of 2006 the Congressmen sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice voicing their concerns over the financial controls of the UNRWA. They point out that the UN's auditors have found that the UNRWA has failed to account for nearly $100 million dollars allocated to the Agency every year. These funds are specifically funded by U.S. taxpayer support.

The UNRWA has shown complicitous behavior when a former Agency teacher, Saeed Seyam ran and won the Interior Minister position as a Hamas candidate during the 2006 election. Mr. Seyam gave this quote, "The day will never come when any Palestinian would be arrested because of his political affiliation or because of resisting the occupation." In the same Reuters report Seyam said, "Saeed Seyam did not come to the government to revive any security cooperation or to protect the occupation and their settlers. I came to protect our people and their fighters, to protect their trees, their properties and their capabilities."

The Israeli Defense Force captured video of a mortar attack in 2007 that used a UNRWA Gaza elementary school as cover:

The 2007 UNRWA Commissioner General Karen Koning AbuZayd admitted to not checking the names of those who receive financial aid against any terrorist watch lists. This act is in direct violation of U.S law which demands that organizations certify that all possible measures are taken to ensure that U.S. contributions are not furnished to any refugees who belong to a terrorist organization or have engaged in terrorism themselves. When asked why the UNRWA was not in compliance AbuZayd said that it would be too difficult because Arab last names sound so familiar.

The U.S. House International Relations Committee in June of 2003 provided the following facts about the financing of the UNRWA: The United States has been the world’s leading donor to UNRWA, having provided over $2,500,000,000 to UNRWA from 1950 to 2002. The United States contribution to UNRWA is nearly 10 times that of the entire Arab world.

In 2007, the U.S. Government contributed $154.15 million to UNRWA, including $90.65 million for UNRWA’s General Fund and $63.5 million for its emergency appeals for Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza. The U.S. State Department announced a 2008 pledge of $148 million dollars to the UNRWA. 

In 2006, UNRWA was the largest UN operation in the Middle East, with over 25,000 staff members. Does anybody believe that the UN will pull the plug on this operation no matter how much damage it has done? Given the problems of the UN and the "Oil for Food Scam" that rocked the organization last year, it is not hard to imagine how many UN staffers and their families have personally benefited from the budget of the UNRWA. The real problem is how long will the U.S. government continue to draw money from its taxpayers to pay terrorists? How does the U.S. government make claims of fighting terrorism only to be the largest donor to a corrupt organization with significant ties to a terrorist group that has actually killed Americans? How long will the American people stay silent while the our government funds a "Terrorist Welfare System"? 

Congressman Lantos (D-CA) sums up many of our concerns when he questions the UN, "Beyond this, I am frankly baffled as to why, more than fifty years after the founding of the State of Israel, there continues to exist a UN agency focused solely on Palestinian refugees. Why has an agency that was established on a temporary basis evolved into a permanent institution  that is outside the administrative and policy jurisdiction of the other UN voluntary agencies? Why have UNRWA's responsibilities not been folded into the operations of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees? Why is UNRWA the only UN agency that reports directly to the General Assembly rather than to the Secretary-General? No other refugee problem in the world has been treated in this privileged and prolonged manner."