United Nations school materials celebrate Hamas terror, says report

At least 14 people working as staff for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, have expressed open support for the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, according to a new report. The report also says that the majority of those who carried out the attacks will have been educated in UNRWA schools, which are described as “a breeding ground for terror”.

IMPACT-se, an Israeli group which monitors educational resources and development in the Arab world, says it has used open-source material to analyse the social media activity of UNRWA staff and schools.

The IMPACT-se analysis describes an UNRWA school in the West Bank city of Nablus, which held a rally for its students, during which a young boy appeals to God to support the Jihad warriors in Gaza against Israel, to which the students respond with affirmation.

UNRWA operates in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, as well as in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. It reportedly provides education to almost 545,000 children in its schools.

In the Gaza Strip alone, there are 183 UNRWA-run schools which according to UNRWA’s own data, educate more than 286,000 students.

IMPACT-se has spent much of the last seven years documenting the contents of Palestinian textbooks used in UNRWA schools. The curriculum was supposedly revised in 2016, but IMPACT-se say “the textbooks have remained openly antisemitic and continue to encourage violence, jihad and martyrdom while peace is not taught as preferable or even possible. Extreme nationalism and Islamist ideologies proliferate throughout the curriculum, including in science and math textbooks”.

Besides the UNRWA staff expressing support for the Hamas attacks, the report profiles 18 people who were graduates of UNRWA schools. It uses “material from the Hamas website which confirms that they died carrying out acts of terror. This research indicates that by Hamas’ own admission more than 100 UNRWA graduates have become active Hamas terrorists”.

Marcus Sheff, the British-born chief executive of IMPACT-se, said:“Time and again we have warned that UNWRA staff and school materials have created a breeding ground for terror. Our worst fears have now been tragically realised with the horrific attack on October 7. All governments that fund UNWRA must urgently review and concurrently freeze financial support to UNRWA to help ensure that another generation is not lost to the evils of hatred and incitement.”

The full report, which is being presented to US Congress on Wednesday, can be read here.