The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has been the primary source of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Gaza since its founding in 1949. Despite ongoing budget shortfalls over the last two years, the agency has focused its aid efforts on the two million Palestinians living in Gaza following Hamas’s October 7 massacre and Israel’s subsequent ground invasion into Gaza.
The trouble with the UN serving as the main source of aid, Israelis and the U.S. government say, is Hamas.
One of the most alarming facts that emerged following October 7 was the involvement of UN workers, including schoolteachers, in the attack. At least 12 UNRWA employees participated in the attack, including by kidnapping Israelis, according to The Wall Street Journal. Some 10 percent of Gaza’s UNRWA workforce have ties to Hamas or other Islamist militant groups. (The United Nations itself was forced to admit that nine employees of UNRWA “may have been involved” in the attacks.)
Then there is the way that Hamas siphons aid meant for ordinary Gazans.