On World Humanitarian Day, the UN Mourned Hamas Terrorists as Fallen Aid Workers

GENEVA – On World Humanitarian Day 2026, the United Nations asked the international community to stop the violence against aid workers and demanded accountability for attacks on humanitarians. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and other top officials held an annual ceremony at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, declaring that more than 1,000 aid workers had been killed over the past three years. Among those mourned as innocent humanitarians and victims of violence were UNRWA staff killed in Gaza.

The problem is that many of the UNRWA employees the UN honored were not humanitarians at all. As reported by Israel, watchdog groups, and a growing body of U.S. government evidence, many of these “honorees” were confirmed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists – some of them photographed committing atrocities on October 7, 2023. The UN’s own internal investigators concluded that UNRWA staff were “likely or highly likely” to have participated in the October 7 massacre.

A Pattern Years in the Making

UNRWA, the UN’s Gaza relief agency, employs approximately 12,000 to 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza. For years, Israel and watchdog groups documented Hamas infiltration of the agency – warnings the UN publicly dismissed as “completely wrong” and “deliberately dishonest.”

That dismissal became harder to sustain in August 2024, when the UN’s own Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) concluded that UNRWA employees were “likely or highly likely” to have participated in the October 7 massacre – confirming what Israel and UN Watch had documented for months. The evidence was not abstract. It had names, faces, and footage.

Terrorists Honored as Humanitarians

Consider Imad El Samhouri, a longtime UNRWA school principal whom the UN honored by lighting an eternal flame at an official ceremony on August 19th. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and then-UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock attended. El Samhouri was a Hamas terrorist commander whose social media documented Hamas officials hosted at UNRWA schools, praise for Hamas fighters, and a post celebrating the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers.

The pattern repeated across the agency’s payroll. UNRWA social worker Faisal al-Naami was mourned as a fallen “aid worker” killed by the IDF. He was filmed on October 7 abducting the body of 21-year-old Israeli Yonatan Samerano into the back of his SUV and transporting it into Gaza. UNRWA driver Mohammed Abu Ittiwi was also mourned as an “aid worker.” He was the Hamas commander who led the Re’im massacre at the Nova music festival.

The infiltration was not limited to Gaza. Fathi Sharif served simultaneously as head of the UNRWA Teachers’ Union in Lebanon and principal of a major UNRWA school in Tyre while leading Hamas operations in Lebanon. Hamas published a statement confirming Sharif was “the leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas in Lebanon.”

A U.S. Probe Finds Hundreds More

A U.S. government probe, independent of Israeli intelligence, has referred 101 or more UNRWA staffers for debarment, identifying them as Hamas soldiers who participated in the October 7 attack. Those flagged include schoolteachers, principals, security personnel, psychosocial counselors, and medical professionals. The probe is expanding to at least 1,500 suspected terrorists connected to UNRWA.

Rather than cooperate, the UN is actively obstructing the U.S. government’s investigation into UNRWA-Hamas ties. A senior State Department source stated: “UNRWA is a subsidiary of Hamas and aided and abetted terrorist activity, including on October 7.” American diplomats have warned the UN to “divorce cancerous UNRWA” as the obstruction continues.

‘What Does That Say About UNRWA?’

UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer put the question directly to the international community on August 17, 2026:

“UNRWA, funded by Western taxpayers, employs more than 30,000 Palestinians. Can you name one – just one – of these UNRWA employees who expressed shock or condemnation about their fellow teacher and school principal being a Hamas terrorist commander? What does that say about UNRWA?”

The Same Script, Every Time

World Humanitarian Day exists to honor people who risk their lives to help others. The UN has turned it into a shield for Hamas. When an agency employs confirmed terrorists, honors their commanders with eternal flames, pays their salaries with Western taxpayer money, reinstates them under Hamas pressure, and then obstructs U.S. government investigations, that is not a humanitarian organization that has been infiltrated. That is a Hamas-aligned operation wearing a humanitarian mask.

The same script runs every time: Israel strikes a target, UNRWA announces a fallen “aid worker,” the media runs the headline, and the documented terror affiliation never makes the story. On World Humanitarian Day 2026, the UN asked the world to “stop the violence” against humanitarians. The world should ask the UN to stop calling Hamas terrorists humanitarians.