Hamas, UNRWA are interlinked in Gaza schools; IMPACT-se report

A Middle East education monitoring group on Thursday accused the UN Palestinian refugee agency of “deep ties” to terror groups, highlighting in a report the hateful curriculum of five UNRWA schools it said are run by senior Hamas members in the Gaza Strip.

The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) said the Palestinian refugee agency “has taken no meaningful steps to address the glorification of violence or antisemitic rhetoric in these schools,” claiming many of its staff members who have participated in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad activities remain on the payroll.

Citing information released by the Israel Defense Forces, the 71-page report detailed activities at five Gaza schools it said are run by terror group members who are also employed as senior educational officers at UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

The report lists the Al Zeitoun Boys Preparatory and Elementary Schools, whose principal Mohammad Juma Shuwaideh, is allegedly a squad commander in Hamas’s 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 allegedly squad commanders in Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade; the Al-Mughraqa Boys Elementary School, whose principal, Raed Khaled Abu Mukhadda, is allegedly a Hamas operative in the Deir al-Balah Battalion; Nuseirat Boys Preparatory C School, headed by Mahmoud Faez Sarraj, allegedly a Hamas military wing operative in the Nuseirat Battalion; and Ahmad Abdel Aziz Boys Preparatory School, led by Mahmoud Ahmad Hamdan, allegedly a Hamas member who openly promoted the violent “March of Return” border Gaza border protests.

Among the examples provided by the report was a blackboard in a fifth-grade classroom at the Al-Zeitoun School that featured an image of Dalal Mughrabi, one of the perpetrators of the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre that killed 38 Israelis, along with text describing her as a “fighting leader” and “hero.”

IMPACT-se said that Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, a late extremist Islamic preacher and namesake of Hamas’s military wing, was also venerated by educators as a “martyr” and “hero” in the class.

The watchdog said content at the Al-Maghazi School called a firebombing attack on an Israeli bus a “barbecue party,” and noted materials, such as maps, erasing the Jewish state or referencing Israeli cities as Palestinian.

A question on an exam paper with an UNRWA logo was also found reading, “Liberating the Al-Aqsa Mosque and making sacrifices for it is an obligation for all Muslims.”

The Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem is under the administrative control of the Jordanian Waqf. Many Palestinian terrorists claim to be motivated by concern for Al-Aqsa, and the Hamas terror group called its October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel the “Al-aqsa FLood.”

IMPACT-se said that “content promoting hatred of Israel is gratuitously inserted into grammar exercises in a virtual self-evaluation exam prepared by UNRWA’s Gaza education department.”

The report alleged, as it has done in past reports, that contrary to the refugee agency’s claims, the number of members who have participated in terror activities is not “a few isolated cases” and its links to terror 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 7 October 2023,” IMPACT-se said in a statement. “These latest revelations about Hamas’s central role in UNRWA schools further reinforce that UNRWA’s educational system is not fit for purpose.”

IMPACT-se’s CEO Marcus Sheff said his organization was “deeply concerned, although not surprised,” by the findings.

“UNRWA has repeatedly failed to act, despite mounting evidence and repeated warnings of the deep influence of terror groups on UNRWA’s schools. This is not just about accountability, but about protecting young minds from an education that fuels hatred and extremism,” Sheff said, according to IMPACT-se’s statement.

The organization, based in the UK and Israel, has since the late 1990s monitored school curricula around the world, with a particular focus on the Middle East.

For years, IMPACT-se has been sounding the alarm over what it says is anti-Israel incitement contained in Palestinian textbooks, including the systematic erasure of Israel’s existence and the glorification of violent jihad and martyrdom.

Israel has long had a combative relationship with UNRWA, which it argues has perpetuated the Palestinian refugee crisis by allowing the status to be passed down through generations. Frustration with UNRWA in Jerusalem has picked up over the past decade as Israel has found the Gaza-ruling Hamas terror group embedded within the agency’s infrastructure.

That anger has peaked since Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, in which a number of UNRWA staffers were found to have participated, including kidnapping and killing Israelis. Israel has alleged that 10 percent of the UN agency’s staff in Gaza have ties to terror groups — a charge the agency says it has no evidence of.

Two weeks ago, Israeli parliament Knesset passed a bill banning UNRWA from operating from Israeli territory and prohibiting Israeli government agencies from working with UNRWA. The bill takes effect in three months.

The UN has said nine UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the attack and had been fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon killed in September by Israel was found to have had a UNRWA job.

Last month, UNRWA confirmed that a Hamas Nukhba commander killed in an Israeli strike, who led the killing and kidnapping of Israelis from a roadside bomb shelter near Kibbutz Re’im on October 7 last year, had been employed by the agency since July 2022.

In February, the IDF revealed the existence of a subterranean Hamas data center directly beneath UNRWA’s Gaza Strip headquarters. The IDF has also repeatedly targeted Hamas command centers and gunmen hiding out in UNRWA schools.

UNRWA was established in 1949 following Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. It provides aid, health, and education to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and neighboring Arab countries — Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.

It is only one of two UN refugee agencies. While UNRWA caters to Palestinians, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is responsible for all other refugees around the world.

The United Nations has repeatedly argued there is no alternative to UNRWA. Israel says its job can be carried out by other agencies it views as less corrupted by terror support.