After UNRWA’s commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini ordered his Lebanon director to suspend a teacher for inciting terrorism on social media, one of 133 UNRWA employees exposed in a joint report last week by UN Watch and IMPACT-se, the Iranian-sponsored Islamic Jihad issued a statement condemning the organization.
Mr. Jihad Muhammad, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad in Lebanon, criticized UN Watch’s report and American funding requirements of zero tolerance for incitement. Mr. Jihad Muhammad said that UNRWA’s suspension of teacher Riyad Mustafa Nimr was “unacceptable” and “condemned by all sectors of the Palestinian people.”
Muhammad stated, “What happened confirms the total bias of those in favor of the Zionist entity to put pressure on the Palestinian refugees to accept any of the solutions offered to them, including resettlement or an alternative homeland, and giving up the right of return.”
Hamas also criticized UNRWA earlier this week for “repressive behavior that contradicts the human right to freedom, thought, and expression.”
“UNRWA’s reliance on UN Watch,” according to the Hamas statement, “implements Zionist policies and has hostile stances toward the rights of the Palestinian people.”
“Quickly reverse this unjust decision, to restore the teacher Mustafa to his work immediately, and to stop this policy which is contrary to the most basic human rights,” Hamas requested of UNRWA.
In response to the suspension of a teacher who was accused of endorsing terrorism on social media, outraged UNRWA staff removed children from Lebanon’s schools.
Following the publication of a 100-page investigative report on incitement to hatred and violence in UNRWA schools by IMPACT-SE and UN Watch last week, Riyad Nimr Mustafa was suspended without pay.
Mustafa was one of 133 UNRWA teachers and staff members found in the report to have incited others through social media. He supported a terrorist attack in 2014 on a Jerusalem synagogue in which Palestinians brutally murdered Jewish worshippers with axes. In addition, he regarded Ibrahim Nabulsi, commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, as a “martyr” and the “noblest of souls.”
Nabulsi’s cell had been liable for assaults on Israeli warriors and regular citizens in the West Bank, remembering an assault for Joseph’s Burial place, an old Jewish heavenly site in Nablus. The funeral video of Nabulsi was shared by Mustafa, who praised “martyrs who have commanded us to follow the path they had taken” in it. In a rare move, Nablus mayor Ibrahim Ramadan criticized Nabulsi’s mother’s request at the funeral for additional suicide missions.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is largely supported by contributions from the United States, Canada, the European Union, and EU member states, has been criticized numerous times for educational materials that encourage antisemitism, violence, and terrorist attacks.
Ten teachers whose online activity demonstrated their support for terrorism and antisemitism were profiled in the report that was released last week, which provided details about alleged violations of UNRWA’s neutrality commitments regarding educational content.
In a proclamation gave in light of the report, UNRWA pummeled its creators for an “endeavor to sensationalize and exaggerate” the issue — yet the organization declared that it had advised benefactor states on its send off of an examination concerning seven out of the ten claimed culprits.
Six teachers were fired by UNRWA in 2022 for similar acts of incitement.
A general strike was called in Nahr al-Bared, the northern Lebanese UNRWA camp where Mustafa is a teacher, in response to his suspension last week. At least one additional UNRWA facility in the region has been affected by the strike.
