Donald Trump shuts down funding to UNRWA, UN organisation with ties to Hamas

On 3rd February, a White House official informed that the United States President Donald Trump is expected to terminate the country’s involvement in the United Nations Human Rights Council and to continue to suspend funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Trump reconfirmed the decision to stop US assistance to UNRWA as the country’s envoy Dorothy Shea blasted the organisation for “exaggerating the effects” of the Israeli response during her speech to the UN Security Council, calling such statements as “irresponsible and dangerous.” UNRWA’s alleged role in the 7th October massacre In January 2024, the charges surfaced after Israel notified UNRWA that 12 employees were involved in the attack on Israel. “The shaft led to an underground terror tunnel that served as a significant asset of Hamas’s military intelligence and passed under the building that serves as UNRWA’s main headquarters in the Gaza Strip,” Israel revealed. The assessment listed: Al Zeitoun Boys Preparatory and Elementary Schools, whose principal Mohammad Juma Shuwaideh was a squad commander in Hamas Gaza City Brigade; the Al-Maghazi Boys Preparatory School B, where both the principal Khaled Said Mustafa Al-Massri and deputy principal Ahmad Samir Mahmoud El Khatib are squad commanders in Hamas Khan Younis Brigade; the Al-Mughraqa Boys Elementary School, whose principal, Raed Khaled Abu Mukhadda is a Hamas operative in the Deir al-Balah Battalion; Nuseirat Boys Preparatory C School, headed by Mahmoud Faez Sarraj, a Hamas military wing operative in the Nuseirat Battalion; and Ahmad Abdel Aziz Boys Preparatory School, led by Mahmoud Ahmad Hamdan, a Hamas member who openly promoted the violent “March of Return” border Gaza border protests. IMPACT-se conveyed that, “a virtual self-evaluation exam created by UNRWA’s Gaza education department gratuitously inserts content promoting hatred of Israel into grammar exercises.” As in previous reports, it suggested that in contrast to the UN agency’s statements, the number of individuals who have engaged in terrorist activities is not “a few isolated cases” and its connections to terrorism are “endemic.” “This latest IMPACT-se report emphasizes that by promoting violence and demonizing Israel, UNRWA schools in Gaza foster the kind of hatred that fuelled the atrocities of 7th October 2023.