A Few Bad Apples?: 8,000 UNRWA Teachers Rallied for Hamas Terrorist

Hillel Neuer speaks at the UN Human Rights Council to combat the myth that UNRWA is plagued by just "a few bad apples."

Full Remarks:
How fitting that this Council meets here in the Hall of Qatar, sponsored by the country now hosting Hamas terrorist chiefs in Doha luxury hotels.

In her report, Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese urged funding of UNRWA, which she says is being “attacked.” Let us consider.

Yesterday, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini was next door to meet with the Swiss Parliament’s foreign affairs committee. They announced that I will be invited to brief them next. Here’s a preview of what I will say.

On February 10th, the world discovered the terror tunnel right below UNRWA headquarters in Gaza, with electric cables going from the UNRWA grid to power computer servers forming a Hamas intelligence center. Mr. Lazzarini responded: “UNRWA did not know what is under its headquarters.”

Really? Because a week prior, on February 2nd, the Wall Street Journal reported: “In 2014, part of the parking lot at UNRWA headquarters in Gaza began sinking, likely from a Hamas tunnel dug beneath. ‘No one talked about what was causing the collapse,’ a former Unrwa official said, ‘but everyone knew.’”

I repeat: “Everyone knew.”

When it was revealed that numerous UNRWA employees took part in the massacre of October 7th, Mr. Lazzarini and his surrogates claimed, “It’s just a few bad apples.”

Really? In September 2011, Suhail al-Hindi, Chair of the UNRWA Staff Union in Gaza, and principal of an UNRWA boys school, was suspended for his role with Hamas. He was a member of the Hamas politburo with Yahya Sinwar.

In response, the entire UNRWA staff in Gaza, 8,000 teachers and school principals, went on strike for months to support this Hamas leader. UNRWA reinstated him.

“A few bad apples”?

No. UNRWA is rotten to the core.