UNRWA Gaza Staffer Suspended After Elected to Hamas' Bureau Was Previously Reinstated After Suspension for Hamas Affiliation

"Chris Guinness, UNRWA spokesman in the Gaza Strip, stated that the agency had decided to suspend Suhail al-Hindi from his position. He said that in view of an internal investigation during which "substantial information" had been presented from several sources, the decision was taken on February 26, 2017, "to suspend Suhail al-Hindi, pending the outcome of [the] investigation"1 (Jerusalem Post, February 26, 2017). The announcement came after UNRWA announced, on February 23, 2017, that 'Based on the due diligence carried out by the agency to date, UNRWA has neither uncovered nor received evidence to contradict the staff member's denial that he was elected to political office.'...

It was not the first time Suhail al-Hindi was suspended by UNRWA because of his affiliation to Hamas. In September 2011 UNRWA suspended him from his teaching job for three months, apparently because he had met with Ismail Haniyeh. UNRWA said at the time that it was because of his "political activity," i.e., his Hamas activity (Ynet quoting the AP, September 29, 2011). At the time Hamas exerted pressure on UNRWA to reinstate him, including protests by the de facto Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip which closed down UNRWA schools with 220,000. In the end he was reinstated, and remained in his position until the current suspension...

In conclusion, in recent years there have been several rounds of power struggles between Hamas and UNRWA which UNRWA has consistently lost ground. The suspensions of Suhail al-Hindi have not been isolated, unrelated cases but rather illustrate the double identities of officials who are employed by UNRWA: they are both activists or supporters of Hamas, a terrorist organization seeking to destroy the State of Israel, and UNRWA employees, including teachers and school principals, who are supposed to serve as educational role models. The results of previous power struggles between Hamas and UNRWA clearly showed Hamas' strength among UNRWA employees and its determination to preserve that power (including by shutting down UNRWA schools). Hamas does not intend to give up its control of the educational system in the Gaza Strip, which is considered an important tool for indoctrinating generations of young Gazans with its extremist Islamist ideology to prepare them to join the movement and its military-terrorist wing (the Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades)."