UN agency responds to abduction allegations: ‘We have flour’
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) issued a bizarre response to a CNN reporter Monday who asked about recent allegations that UNRWA operatives are collaborating with Hamas to hold Israelis hostage in Gaza.
Accusations about UNRWA’s participation were published last week by Almog Boker, a reporter for Israel’s Channel 13. Boker revealed that one of the hostages who has been recently released says he was held in captivity for nearly 50 days by a UNRWA employee who teaches in one of the UNRWA-run schools in the Gaza Strip.
“This teacher locked the victim away, barely provided food, and neglected medical needs. But wait, there's more! Another abductee was held captive by a Gazan doctor who, simultaneously, cared for children. These are not isolated incidents; these civilians are terrorists,” wrote Boker, who noted that UNRWA employees also took part in the October 7th massacre.
In response, UNRWA claimed it would investigate the allegations but also demanded Boker delete his post, as without “credible evidence” such accusations are “misinformation.” Boker hit back, reminding the UN agency that these were testimonies from the victims.
On Monday CNN anchor Bianna Golodryga reported the above exchange and asked UNRWA spokesman Tom White about the allegations.
“How is UNRWA investigating or responding to these two quite damning allegations?”
White responded by saying UNRWA is delivering bags of flour to Gaza.
“So all I can speak to is our aid,” he said. “Essentially, the aid that UNRWA is bringing in goes directly into the hands of refugees. So on any given day here we are distributing over 50,000 bags of flour to families so that they can provide for themselves. How we account for that — “
Golodryga interrupted White in an attempt to bring the conversation back to UNRWA’s participation in attacks on Israelis.
“Does it bother you then at all that some of these trucks may be bringing, secretly smuggling in, rockets or that UNRWA teachers are hiding abductees allegedly?” she asked.
But White launched back into an account of the agency’s flour-related activities.
“Look, our trucks are not bringing in rockets,” responded White. “Our trucks are bringing in wheat flour, they’re bringing in supplies that help families eke out a very basic existence. We have a very clear system of accountability. Every bag of flour that is provided is cross-referenced against people’s national identity number. There are now hundreds of thousands of bags — you have literally wheat bags, wheat flour bags in Gaza with the UNRWA logo on them and they have all gone to families so that they can feed themselves.”
Although the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has been dealing with refugees around the world since 1921, UNRWA was set up specifically for Muslims from Israel.
With an annual budget of over a billion dollars collected from the US, European countries, and international NGOs, UNRWA employs approximately 30,000 local Muslims and provides year-round “humanitarian aid” for free to Muslim “refugees” across the Levant. The more refugees UNRWA can claim, the more funds it can collect.
Muslims whose forbears were living in the Land of Israel prior to 1948 and no longer live in the same home have been granted lifetime “refugee” status by UNRWA, even if they move to a different country. Those who do live in the same home can still access UNRWA benefits and services. In 1950 UNRWA claimed there were 750,000 “Palestinian refugees.” Today, that number is 5.9 million and counting.
This is because even those who have never even been to Israel or the Middle East and are citizens of other countries are also considered refugees if they are related to Muslims who lived in the Land of Israel before 1948. It is also because when Israel emerged victorious from the Six Day War in 1967 after having captured Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, UNRWA decided to designate Muslims in those areas as “refugees” as well.
UNRWA’s collaboration with Islamic groups — mostly through schools and “humanitarian aid” — has been well documented in the past and is now being highlighted in relation to the October 7th attack.
It was found, for example, that some of the attackers graduated from UNRWA schools, which make up at least half of Gaza’s educational institutions.
Last week the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recovered the combat vest of one of the attackers, which included a UNRWA identification card.
Reports by UN Watch have detailed how UNRWA operatives work with the Palestinian Authority (PA) to teach Jew hatred, Holocaust denial, and Muslim supremacy in schools in areas the PA administers. UNRWA teachers have also been glorifying the October 7th massacre in classrooms.
UNRWA’s “humanitarian aid” has also repeatedly “fallen” into the hands of Hamas operatives.
