UNWRA admits Hamas tunnel buried under its school

UN agency embarrassed again after admitting Israeli bombing exposed a military tunnel under one of its Gaza schools.

By World Israel News Staff

This week, the United Nations (UN) admitted that the Hamas terror group placed a one of its tunnels under a UN-operated school in in Gaza.

“A detailed assessment on 31 May 2021 revealed what appears to be a cavity and a possible tunnel, at the location of the missile strike,” said an United Nations Relief and Works Agency for (UNRWA) press release. “UNRWA condemns the existence and potential use by Palestinian armed groups of such tunnels underneath its schools in the strongest possible terms. It is unacceptable that students and staff be placed at risk in such a way.”

The revelation definitively confirms that Hamas uses children as human shields, former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said Monday.

While inspecting bomb damage at the Zaitoun Preparatory Boys’ School, UNRWA admitted that investigators found “what appears to be a cavity and a possible tunnel, at the location of the missile strike. The depth of the cavity is approximately 7.5 meters below the surface of the school.”

Haley said the discovery showed Hamas’ cruelty, hiding behind vulnerable civilians.

“Another Hamas terror tunnel was found underneath a UNRWA school. This is further proof that Hamas will use children as human shields,” Haley tweeted. “Hamas doesn’t care about protecting its civilians, it only cares about killing Israel’s.”

Over the years, UNRWA has been caught with Hamas weapons in its buildings, including schools. Professor Oren Gross, of the University of Minnesota Law School tweeted that a pattern has emerged in which “Hamas [uses] UNRWA’s schools and health clinics to hide its terror tunnels & UNRWA is ‘surprised’ to find those.”

After Hamas rockets were found hidden in an UNRWA school in 2014, then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon issued an angry statement saying that whoever placed the rockets there was endangering civilians by making the school a legitimate military target under international law.

“By doing so, those responsible are turning schools into potential military targets, and endangering the lives of innocent children, UN employees working in such facilities and anyone using the UN schools as shelter,” Moon said.

In Geneva, the head of the watchdog organization UN Watch, which monitors abuses by the UN, called on current UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to end his organization’s inaction and take steps to crack down on UNRWA, which aside from the weapons embarrassments has been wracked by corruption scandals.

“The discovery of this terror tunnel operating directly under the classrooms of young children is not an isolated incident but part of a policy and practice by Hamas terrorists to systematically exploit the organs of the United Nations,” Neuer tweeted.