A lawsuit was filed today by more than 100 victims of the October 7, 2023, massacres by Hamas in Israel. They are suing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) for “aiding and abetting” Hamas.

UNRWA allegedly supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. However, since October 7, it has been exposed as a corrupt, antisemitic operation working with Hamas against Israelis. 

It is a $1B lawsuit that was filed in New York. It says that UNRWA, an organization under the umbrella of the United Nations, “helped Hamas build up the terror infrastructure and personnel that were necessary to carry out the October 7 attack”.

The $1billion lawsuit represents 101 plaintiffs including hostages, Nova festival survivors, and families of people who were murdered. It claims UNRWA knew some of its personnel were members of Hamas, that its personnel had taken part in the October 7 massacre and had held Israeli people hostage. It also claims that UNRWA helped radicalize a Palestinian population into supporting terror against Israel through its textbooks.

While many of the claims have been made by Israel over several years, the lawsuit alleges for the first time that by paying UNRWA staff in cash in American dollars, it had put $1billion of the currency into circulation which enabled Hamas to buy weapons which were used against Israel and also benefitted the terrorist group who took a percentage of money changing.

In other words, UNRWA funds terrorism in Gaza with cash payments, American dollars. UNRWA employees held Israeli hostages. Its personnel are members of Hamas. Hamas controls Gaza. Supporting Gazans means supporting Hamas. Gazans continue to elect Hamas leaders. They are complicit in terrorism against Israel. 

There are 101 plaintiffs so far, with a further 800 expected to join the lawsuit. The lead plaintiffs include hostage Ditza Heiman who was held by an UNRWA teacher for seven weeks. The lawsuit claims the homeowner said he was a teacher at an UNRWA school for boys and often she was fed with food labelled to show it was for UNRWA schools.

It also includes Nova Festival survivor Talia Biner who has been unable to work since witnessing the bodies of her friends and boyfriend murdered and hearing women being raped and Gadi Kedem who had six members of his family, including his daughter and grandchildren, murdered on the day of the attacks at kibbutz Nir Oz.

The lawsuit names the names of UNRWA officials who allegedly helped Hamas carry out the massacres on October 7. 

The lawsuit names six former and present UNRWA bosses, including Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini, saying: “Hamas did not carry out these atrocities without assistance. It was aided and abetted by, among others, the above-named defendants who are current or former senior officials [at UNRWA] and UNRWA itself who collectively spent over a decade prior to the October 7 attack helping Hamas built up the terror infrastructure and personnel that were necessary to carry out the October 7 attack.”

It added that UNRWA was “warned repeatedly that their policies were providing assistance to Hamas. In the face of those warnings, defendants continued those very policies.”

The question is why was UNRWA allowed to keep operating in Gaza if the United Nations knew for years that UNRWA was assisting Hamas with bad policies? The United Nations is feckless. It is a corrupt, bloated bureaucracy that frequently targets Israel over its neighbors. The U.N. Security Council regularly sides against Israel in votes. The U.N. is deeply anti-Israel. 

Nine countries have suspended funding to UNRWA. Those countries are the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, and Japan. France is not planning to make new payments to UNRWA. 

UNRWA should be dissolved. Its leaders have to be held accountable. This will be a story to follow. Hit them where it hurts - in the pocketbook. 

Japan