Adam Kredo writes for the Washington Free Beacon about a significant probe into staffers of a major United Nations operation.
The chief oversight body responsible for monitoring American foreign assistance has launched an independent investigation into United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staffers’ ties to Hamas, building a blacklist that will prevent them from migrating to other U.N. agencies that may be involved in the Gaza reconstruction project, nonpublic briefing materials reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.
The U.N. has never designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, so membership in the terror group “would not automatically disqualify an applicant from working on a U.S. taxpayer-funded U.N. program,” according to investigatory documents provided to Congress by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) inspector general’s office, a law enforcement entity separate from USAID. Federal investigators have already given the names of at least three current or former UNRWA employees who participated in the Oct. 7 attack—and another 14 otherwise affiliated with Hamas—to the State Department.
Though Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said UNRWA will not play a role in post-war Gaza, the Trump administration’s 20-point peace plan does authorize the U.N. to participate in the humanitarian aid process. The inspector general is using its investigation, named Operation Stop the Carousel, to ensure that UNRWA’s terror-affiliated employees cannot circulate to the U.N. agencies and other NGOs allowed on the ground in Gaza. Once the investigation identifies Hamas-linked UNRWA employees, the inspector general will report them to federal officials for placement on a publicly available blacklist and potentially refer them to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.
The inspector general’s briefing for Congress comes after the Free Beacon’s report that the U.N. tossed out Israeli intelligence to minimize UNRWA’s relationship with Hamas. U.N. investigators looked into 19 UNRWA employees’ ties to the terror group based on Israel’s findings. The subsequent report portrayed the intelligence as likely authentic yet deemed it “insufficient” to support the termination of 10 of the 19 employees.
