UNRWA serves as Hamas subsidiary, undermining hopes of peace

"On Oct. 7—the day Hamas terrorists ruthlessly slaughtered 1,200 innocent Israelis and took hostage 240 others—Ranoosh Salah, a staff member of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) posted on social media that it was ‘an unforgettable glorious morning.’

That an UNRWA employee would proclaim such support for Hamas’s massacre should come as no surprise. After all, the U.N. agency has unbreakable ties to Hamas, particularly in the Gaza Strip, where many UNRWA personnel are also Hamas members or supporters. In fact, some Gazans report that UNRWA is effectively a $1 billion branch of the Hamas organization.

For this reason, Israel must dismantle and expel UNRWA from the Strip, just as it will Hamas.

Indisputably, both UNRWA and Hamas share the same goal: the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel. Both cling to the decades-old belief that all Palestinian ‘refugees’ must return to a ‘homeland’ they never owned or controlled, including what is now Israel.

Of course, this would result in the disappearance of Israel’s Jewish majority, and with it, the Jewish state itself. Rather than help Palestinians progress to peace and independence, as UNRWA was intended to do, the agency has perpetuated the Palestinians’ refugee status for 75 years now.

But UNRWA’s misdeeds go far beyond just maintaining Palestinians’ statelessness. Since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, the U.N. agency has basically become a subsidiary of the Islamist terrorist group—to the extent that the two are almost indistinguishable.

UNRWA schools have become indoctrination centers, where Palestinian children are fed a steady diet of antisemitism and Islamic fundamentalism. They are encouraged to hate and kill Jews, even if it means dying themselves, for according to Hamas’s ideology, martyrdom is the highest honor one can aspire to.

UNRWA facilities serve as part of Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure. The same schools in which Palestinians are taught to slaughter Jews also serve as terrorist bases, used to store weapons or launch rockets into Israel.

In reality, this U.N. agency is part and parcel of Hamas’s control and terrorism apparatus in Gaza. Yet, astoundingly, the Biden administration, along with the rest of the West, continues to fund UNRWA—meaning that the American taxpayer is directly subsidizing terrorism..."