Two Hamas Terrorists Were UNRWA School Principals — And No One Cares
Palestinians pass by the gate of an UNRWA-run school in Nablus in the West Bank. Photo: Reuters/Abed Omar Qusini.
IMPACT-SE just released “Review of UNRWA Schools Headed by Hamas Principals.” As it says:
[Israel] identified twelve UNRWA employees in the Gaza Strip holding senior positions (schools principals, deputies, directors and deputy directors of training centers) as members of Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The intelligence shows that over 10% of the 510 employees in UNRWA’s education system in the Gaza Strip, who hold senior positions, are members of Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both of which are designated terror organizations.
Two of the Hamas-member UNRWA employees were principals of schools under which Hamas tunnels were built, as revealed by UNRWA itself: Al-Maghazi Boys Preparatory School B, and Al-Zaytun Boys Preparatory School A. …
The report found that Al-Maghazi school produced material glorifying violence and terrorism, such as a text describing a firebomb attack on a bus carrying Israelis as a “barbecue party.” The report also showed that terrorists such as Dalal Al-Mughrabi, who committed the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre, are glorified as heroes in the classrooms of Al-Zaytun Boys Elementary Schools A, an UNRWA school located in the same complex as the Al-Zaytun Preparatory School. UNRWA repeatedly claims that it does not teach content praising Mughrabi, yet these examples are clear evidence to the contrary.
Furthermore, this report exposes new material prepared by and taught in three schools, whose principals were identified as Hamas operatives… Educational content prepared and adopted by these schools promotes libels against and non-recognition of Israel, and gratuitously inserts content promoting hatred and violence against Israel into grammar exercises. [emphasis added]
An Arabic Language study card produced by an UNRWA school in the Gaza Strip contains a reading comprehension story, cynically celebrating an attack on Israeli passengers traveling on a bus, describing it as a “barbecue party” (ḥaflat šiwā’). Contextually, this story references a 1988 Palestinian attack on an Israeli school bus near the settlement of Psagot in the West Bank, which involved the use of Molotov cocktails.
The 5th grade Arabic Language summary teaches a text titled “I Love My Village” (p. 8) which presents martyrdom in a positive light by praising the fact that the land—referring to Palestine—is “mixed with the blood of the martyrs.” It also teaches students (p. 15) that martyrdom and jihad are “the most important meanings of life” through an exercise practicing vocabulary and Arabic grammar.
On September 9, 2023, the Telegram group for the 5th grade [of one of the Hamas-led UNRWA schools], class 1, posted a photo of a blackboard in a school classroom in which students are taught a lesson from the PA textbook titled “Hooray for the Heroes,” which glorifies individuals affiliated with war, violence, religious extremism and even terrorism, such as Izz Ad-Din Al-Qassam. Children are encouraged to see these heroes as their role models: “each of us wishes to be like them”. The blackboard shows the name of the lesson’s title and questions from the textbooks discussing the importance of such “heroes.”
On March 2, 2022, the Telegram group for the 5th grade, class 1,144 posted images of a classroom blackboard displaying a large photo of Dalal Mughrabi, along with text venerating her from a PA Arabic textbook (Arabic Language, Grade 5, Vol. 2, 2020, p. 52.). The next day, on March 3, 2022, the same Telegram group posted photos of the students presenting to the class while standing in front of the blackboard with the lesson on [mass murderer] Dalal Mughrabi. [UNRWA has denied any schools teach praise for Mughrabi.]
On September 14, 2023, Malek al-Harazin, a teacher at the school, uploaded a summary of a lesson from the National Education textbook to a grade 5 Telegram group. The summary teaches students that Israel steals Palestinian antiquities, presenting them as Jewish, which implies that Israel has no historic connection to the land. The summary uploaded by al-Harazin teaches that the aim behind the robbery of antiquities is to expel Palestinians and to colonize their lands.
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