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| "Death to You, O Sons of Zion" message from URWA doctor on Facebook, 2015 |
UNRWA uses signed letters from the government to verify that their employees aren't terrorists.
In Gaza, that means that UNRWA trusts Hamas to tell it that its teachers and principals aren't Hamas members.
That is only one example of how poor UNRWA's vetting and investigation process is.
They add details that show UNRWA is irresponsible even more than we had already known.
We see an agency that downplayed all evidence of its employees being terrorists, evidence that Hamas purposefully chose schools to "protect the resistance," and that its vetting procedures to ensure that they don't hire terrorists are worse than a joke.
The most damning details are buried deep in the article.
Paragraph 11:
Among the seized records are secret Hamas military plans that show that the Qassam Brigades regarded schools and other civilian facilities as “the best obstacles to protect the resistance” in the group’s asymmetric war with Israel. The documents also list two schools in particular that were to be used as redoubts where fighters could hide and stash weapons in a conflict.
Paragraph 13:
In several cases, educators remained employed by UNRWA even after Israel provided written warnings that they were militants.
Paragraph 26:
Residents of Gaza said in interviews that the idea that Hamas had operatives in UNRWA schools was an open secret. One educator on Israel’s list of 100 was regularly seen after hours in Hamas fatigues carrying a Kalashnikov.
Paragraphs 33-34:
Seized records say that the principal of the school, Khaled al-Masri, is a Hamas member who was issued an assault rifle and a handgun, and he is pictured standing in front of a Hamas banner on Facebook.
He remains on UNRWA’s staff, the agency says, but is under investigation for a social media violation.
Paragraph 39:
Even for criminal background checks, UNRWA relies on employees to self-report and provide confirmation of a clean record by way of a letter from the “de facto authorities.” In Gaza, that means Hamas, and before Hamas took over in 2007, it meant the Palestinian Authority.
And even when the UN investigates, it doesn't bother to investigate:
Paragraphs 41-42:
For nine of the workers, the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services said there was insufficient evidence to take action. But a copy of its report, which was never made public, says it did not consider evidence that Israel provided about their “alleged membership of the armed wing of Hamas or other militant groups.”U.N. investigators ultimately only found that the other nine “may have” been involved. (In one case, investigators were shown video of the worker throwing a dead Israeli into an S.U.V.)
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