The United Nations is facing fierce criticism after Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock participated in a memorial ceremony honoring a UNRWA school principal who was later identified as a Hamas commander, with U.N. officials now refusing demands to retract the tribute or issue an apology.
The controversy stems from the U.N.’s annual memorial service in June honoring employees who had died during the preceding year. Guterres and Baerbock attended the ceremony, during which an “eternal flame” candle was lit and the names of 136 deceased U.N. workers were read aloud as a violin played.
Among those memorialized was Imad El Samhouri, who had served as a teacher and principal at UNRWA Preparatory Boys School B in Rafah before being killed in an Israeli airstrike in June 2025.
El Samhouri’s inclusion prompted outrage from U.N. critics, including Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon and U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. They pointed to evidence that El Samhouri had been a Hamas leader despite having spent years working within the U.N. agency responsible for Palestinian refugees.
Neuer published evidence on X that he said demonstrated El Samhouri’s Hamas activities, including a “martyrdom video” showing the UNRWA employee dressed in military clothing and surrounded by weapons and grenades.
“We have chosen jihad as our path. Death in the cause of Allah is our highest aspiration,” El Samhouri said in the video. He also boasted about Hamas’s extensive tunnel system, which Israel says was built in part through resources diverted from humanitarian assistance, declaring that “the Zionist enemy never imagines we will emerge from beneath the ground.”
According to Neuer, El Samhouri also helped bring other Hamas operatives into UNRWA schools, creating a “network” that U.N. Watch says it has documented extensively even as the United Nations failed to detect it. Over the years, El Samhouri worked at multiple UNRWA facilities, placing him in contact with thousands of Palestinian children.
“Everyone in UNRWA Rafah knew about El Samhouri. He was a big man on campus, openly active with senior Hamas officials, including as scout for Hamas-linked athletic clubs,” Neuer noted, pointing to instances in which El Samhouri openly celebrated kidnappings and terrorist attacks.
Among the “athletic clubs” for which El Samhouri allegedly recruited was the Al-Qadisiyah Rafah Club, an organization funded by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Activities associated with the club reportedly included training Palestinian children in the use of firearms.
Neuer escalated his criticism in an Aug. 14 open letter to Guterres and Baerbock, urging them to “finally acknowledge that UNRWA is simply unwilling or unable to root out the terrorists who have taken over its schools.”
“Excellencies, how many UNRWA teachers must emerge from Hamas tunnels before you admit that the terrorists are not merely beneath UNRWA’s schools, but actually inside them? Excellencies, if an UNRWA children’s school principal emerging from Hamas tunnels does not compel you to confront the agency’s terrorist infiltration, what possibly will?” he wrote.
Neuer also pointed to remarks Guterres made at the memorial ceremony, when the secretary-general said it was “the privilege of my life” to have worked alongside those being honored, pledged to continue “carrying forward their work,” and said the deceased U.N. employees “made our world a better place.”
“Now that the man you praised has been exposed as a Hamas field commander, do you stand by those words? Is Imad El Samhouri’s work – the jihad, the terror tunnels, the indoctrination of children – the work you intend to carry forward?” Neuer asked.
“Will you retract your tribute, apologize to the victims of Hamas, and order an independent investigation into how a terrorist commander was allowed to run UNRWA schools for more than a decade?” he challenged Guterres and Baerbock.
Neuer concluded his letter by demanding both accountability and a broader investigation into possible terrorist connections among UNRWA personnel.
“We urge you to retract the tribute to Imad El Samhouri, apologize to the victims of Hamas, commission a genuinely independent investigation, and disclose the identities of every UNRWA employee found to have terrorist ties, as well as every supervisor and senior official who knew or should have known.
“There can be no immunity, impunity, or eternal flame for terrorists who infiltrate the United Nations.”
On Wednesday, however, Guterres spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the United Nations would neither retract the tribute nor apologize for El Samhouri’s inclusion. Dujarric repeatedly stressed that the list of individuals scheduled to be honored had been “shared with Israeli authorities,” and “no issues were raised.”
“If those allegations had been shared with us at the time through official channels, it would not have been included,” he said.
“What was said was said, and we’re now stating our position, which makes it clear, had we known and had we been told, his name would probably not have been included,” he said.
Neuer responded by sarcastically characterizing the U.N.’s position as an attempt to avoid responsibility for honoring El Samhouri.
“Yes, we honored a Hamas commander. No, we won’t apologize. No, we won’t correct it. And somehow, this is Israel’s fault,” Neuer sarcastically summarized the response from the United Nations.
Danon similarly blasted the U.N.’s handling of the revelations and its response to questions about El Samhouri.
“It is outrageous to watch the U.N. spokesperson struggle to clearly condemn the crimes committed by former UNRWA employees,” Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon responded.
“The U.N. spokesperson’s response reflects Secretary-General Guterres’ entire tenure: the organization has lost its moral compass. It is because of terrorists like Imad Youssif El Samhouri and others that Israel ended UNRWA’s operations in Israel,” Danon said.
{Matzav.com}
