Staff members outside the UNRWA offices in Gaza City, April 14, 2019. (Flash90/Hassan Jedi) Flash90/Hassan Jedi
UNRWA staff members outside the UNRWA offices in Gaza City on April 14, 2019.

When someone tried to expose the abuses, they were falsely accused of embezzlement and dismissed.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

United Nations relief workers are stealing humanitarian aid and either hoarding it or selling it back to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, according to a new report by the monitor group UN Watch.

The United Nations Relief Workers Association, which came under fire when its ties with Hamas and other terror groups came to light, has allegedly been stealing from the very people they were intended to protect — Palestinian civilians.

UN Watch examined posts from a chatroom created by Haitham al-Sayyed, who was fired from a UNWRA school in 2016 when he exposed the fact that a teacher was using a map that erased Israel.

In the chatroom, UNRWA workers discuss their upset over abuses and the unwillingness of senior officials to take action toward reform.

One worker at a UNRWA school posted, “I am completely dissatisfied with the school administration and its honesty in distributing aid due to the thefts.”

They added, “The displaced people in the external shelter do not get their food and non-food aid, but rather it is distributed at night and sold in front of our eyes.”

They discussed that 150 bags of diapers were intended for needy civilians but were stolen at night and redistributed.

Another UNRWA school employee said they had no fuel for a month because the fuel had been stolen.

They posted, “Our school remained for more than a month without electricity or it came for a few minutes under the pretext that the motor was in another school.”

They added, “The thief was exposed, and the principal was informed, but to this day, he is still working with us, so I feel like vomiting when I see him.”

When someone tried to expose the abuses, they were falsely accused of embezzlement and dismissed.

Another worker posted, “The director of a school warehouse came now with 50 cartons of food that were distributed in UNRWA schools and sold them to a merchant for 350 shekels per carton, equivalent to $100… ”

They added, “How did he take out this amount of cartons? Where is the administration about this?”

When criticizing this behavior, some of the posters in the chatroom made antisemitic remarks.

One poster who calls themselves “nougat” said, “Whoever steals from the children of his people is no different from a Jew.”

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