Gaza residents accuse U.N. staff of stealing and selling humanitarian aid

An NGO that monitors the work of the U.N. claimed that employees of the United Nations Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA) are stealing and selling humanitarian aid materials intended for those in need in Gaza.

According to reports compiled by the Geneva-based non-governmental organization U.N. Watch, Gazans and UNRWA employees reported that their colleagues, supported by senior agency officials, are diverting aid for financial gain.

“UNRWA staff, frustrated by inaction and even complicity of senior staff in these thefts, have thus resorted to sharing their grievances (...) in the hope that he can get UNRWA’s top officials to listen,” the report states.

U.N. Watch said one of the complaints came from an employee working at an emergency shelter set up at a school in Gaza who noticed that many people were not receiving their food aid, but rather it was being sold and distributed during the night.

These allegations not only point to individual cases of dishonest employees but also suggest possible complicity on the part of UNRWA management. Reports detail how some UNRWA center directors are involved in the theft of food and supplies intended for those in need.

“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… How did he take out this amount of cartons? Where is the administration about this?” said one of the complainants.

Other complaints against UNRWA

This same U.N. agency has previously been accused of supplying weapons to terrorists in Gaza and being part of the October 7 massacre against Israel.

Several reports have also revealed that tunnels with Hamas ammunition were found beneath the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza.

Republican senators had already warned on several occasions that the agency has ties to terrorism and have shared extensive evidence accumulated over the years, including a report revealing that more than a hundred Hamas terrorists earned their graduation degrees from schools run by UNRWA.

“UNRWA is part of the problem and can not be part of the solution,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz stated in the past.