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Report: Hamas-affiliated UNRWA personnel prevent food from reaching Gazans

There would be no crisis in the Gaza Strip if Hamas would let contributed aid reach its intended recipients, says a new report.

By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

According to an Israel Resources News Agency (IRNA) report Tuesday, a significant cause of the Gaza Strip’s “humanitarian crisis” can be attributed to the Hamas terror organization itself.

These revelations were made just a short time after the American government suspended $65 million in previously planned donations to the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), which is the major aid organization for Palestinians in Gaza, until reforms are put in place.

According to the IRNA report, 68 donor nations continue to pour food, medicine and cash into  UNRWA camps. Meanwhile, the report contends that the UNRWA workers’ union, under the tight control of Hamas for the past 18 years, hoards food supplies, while contracting foreign press to record a staged humanitarian crisis.

The report is in line with the view of Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, who spoke at the weekly meeting of his Yisrael Beiteinu faction in the Knesset on Monday. “The situation in Gaza is indeed difficult,” he said, adding, “but there is no humanitarian crisis.” He stressed that he was speaking on behalf of the entire defense establishment, including Israel’s security agency, the Shin Bet.

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He also noted that Hamas has poured $260 million into manufacturing rockets and digging terror tunnels in the Gaza Strip in the past year alone. Of that, $100 million came from Iran and the remainder from taxes Hamas collects from Gazan residents.

The IRNA report queried the possibility of donor countries examining allegations of disappearing humanitarian supplies, or even secretly filming what happens to the truckloads of items when they arrive at UNRWA facilities, in view of their oft-stated concern about transparency regarding aid efforts.

The Hamas government has also been questioned as to why it demands ever larger aid payments from donor countries, while spending $260 million annually on terror and military expenditures, instead of using the aid for food staples, electricity, heating oil and other basics that its citizens lack.