The U.N. internal investigation into whether its own staff at the embattled United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) participated in Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre was hamstrung and ineffective from day one, according to an independent U.S. review of the U.N. probe, congressional communications, and Western diplomats who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon. The shoddy probe ultimately enabled the United Nations to claim that in 9 of the 19 cases under review, the evidence was “insufficient to support” staff involvement in the terror spree, a finding meant to exonerate the agency and discredit Israeli intelligence.
The U.S. probe—laid out in a previously unpublished December 2025 report by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) independent inspector general—found that the U.N. officials placed such tight restrictions on their probe, set an impossibly high burden of proof, and that the findings were ultimately useless. The American conclusions about the U.N. probe are privately leading Western donor countries to “reconsider future financial commitments” to UNRWA, which has come under increasing pressure to clean house after the USAID inspector general discovered more than 100 staffers served as Hamas combatants or participated in Oct. 7, according to one diplomat who spoke to the Free Beacon.
The “major deficiencies” in the U.N. internal probe—outlined in a report Congress requested from the USAID inspector general, a statutorily independent law enforcement entity separate from the largely defunct USAID—have also led powerful Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) to formally demand the United Nations explain what many observers increasingly see as a “cover-up.”
The U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) originally investigated 19 UNRWA employees in 2024 and produced a report that concluded the evidence against nine of those individuals was “insufficient” to prove they participated in Oct. 7. The Free Beacon first exposed the findings of that “confidential” investigation in November 2025 and revealed that OIOS dismissed key Israeli intelligence, including intercepted audio recordings and cell phone data, that connected those UNRWA staffers to Hamas.
The USAID inspector general performed its own private review of the OIOS probe around the same time and reached an even more damning conclusion: that the United Nations set an impossibly high standard to determine Oct. 7 participation and then used that benchmark to dismiss the allegations against UNRWA staffers with provable ties to Hamas’s military operations, according to a copy of the findings provided exclusively to the Free Beacon by Grassley’s office.
“What’s well known here in New York is that the U.N. OIOS’ investigation was a complete cover-up,” said one Western diplomat briefed on the findings. “They ignored the obvious, glaring linkages between UNRWA staff and Hamas. Their report gave the [U.N.] Secretary General cover to hide behind a so-called investigation and hope the world would move right along.”
The USAID inspector general’s review identified several “major deficiencies” with the OIOS probe, including its decision to wholly ignore whether any of the UNRWA staffers in question were card-carrying Hamas members. Rather, OIOS employed a narrow scope in which it only investigated direct participation in the Oct. 7 attacks. This self-imposed limitation actually made it more difficult to identify UNRWA staff who joined in Oct. 7 since the U.N cast aside credible intelligence that UNRWA staff moonlighted as Hamas operatives.
Further, the USAID inspector general confirmed that OIOS rejected Hamas communications—intercepted by Israeli intelligence—that linked UNRWA staff to Oct. 7 because the damning information could not be “independently confirmed.”
“One of the primary concerns OIOS raised in their report is that they were ‘unable to independently authenticate’ the evidence presented by the Israeli government. This is a problematic statement for two primary reasons,” the USAID inspector general report concluded. “First, the physical material presented by the Israeli government would be considered ‘collected enemy materials,’ given that they were obtained from Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization in the United States and other countries. It is thus unreasonable to believe that anyone could independently authenticate the materials.”
Secondly, the report explains, “OIOS presented no evidence to suggest that the materials were not authentic. Rather, they rely on the argument that they were only provided with copies, while the originals remained under the custody of Israeli officials.” Notably, however, the USAID inspector general confirmed that it “has found no evidence to suggest that the authenticity of the materials collected by the Israeli government should be questioned.”
“The OIOS investigation was limited to ‘claims of the possible involvement of the…UNRWA staff members in the armed attacks of 7 October 2023 in Southern Israel,'” the USAID inspector general reported. “The investigation did not review whether the UNRWA staff members were current or former members of Hamas.”
By contrast, the USAID inspector general’s independent and ongoing investigation into UNRWA is examining both matters in an unprecedented dragnet that now encompasses more than 1,500 UNRWA-linked individuals suspected of terror ties and serving as militants, as the Free Beacon first reported in May. The USAID inspector general’s ongoing investigation has led UNRWA to voluntarily fire 70 staffers to date.
In cases where UNRWA ultimately terminated employees in the face of insurmountable evidence of ties to Hamas’s military wing, it left open the possibility they could be rehired elsewhere and work on U.S. taxpayer-funded projects.
“The characterization of their termination allows these individuals to seek further employment with other NGOs or U.N. organizations who may potentially receive U.S. taxpayer funding for foreign assistance in Gaza,” the USAID inspector general warned. “Absent robust vetting protocols, the likelihood for recirculation of these individuals into the aid sector is very high.”
A U.N. spokesman confirmed receipt of Grassley’s Aug. 27 demand letter and said only that it “will be answered.” The spokesman would not address the USAID inspector general’s findings and other questions about the integrity of its probe into UNRWA, which did not respond to a separate request for comment.
A senior Trump administration official familiar with the matter said the findings are privately motivating the Western donor countries on which UNRWA is dependent to consider pulling their funding.
“What’s happened is that the USAID IG’s independent investigation into UNRWA Hamas ties has ripped the veneer off of the U.N.’s shoddy investigation and is causing the international community to reconsider future commitments to UNRWA,” the official told the Free Beacon, speaking only on background about private conversations.
A State Department spokesman would not answer questions about the USAID inspector general’s findings, but made clear that “no State Department funding will be provided to UNRWA, which has been totally infiltrated by Hamas and terrorist sympathizers. The Administration has determined UNRWA is irredeemably compromised and now seeks its full dismantlement.”
Upon releasing the USAID inspector general’s findings to the Free Beacon, Grassley also sent a fresh demand letter to U.N. secretary-general António Guterres, as well as to the State Department. Copies of both Aug. 27 letters were provided exclusively to the Free Beacon.
The senator wrote that he is “concerned about the U.N.’s reported lack of cooperation with the USAID OIG’s investigation into U.S. taxpayer-funded aid programming in Gaza,” citing multiple Free Beacon reports about U.N. efforts to obstruct the investigation.
Grassley is demanding the United Nations provide him with a litany of unredacted internal documents related to the OIOS investigation, its deficiencies, and any steps that have since been taken to ensure “U.S. taxpayer dollars are not used to fund Hamas or other terrorist groups.”
In a separate letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Grassley raised additional concerns about the slow pace with which the State Department is adding Hamas-linked UNRWA staff to a federal blacklist that bars them from working on future taxpayer-funded projects. To date, the USAID inspector general has referred more than 100 UNRWA employees to the State Department for addition to this blacklist, but, thus far, only 1 individual has been included.
Grassley is seeking records related to this process and for the State Department to disclose exactly “how many employees who work for the U.N. and its agencies” have been “identified as being affiliated with or a member of Hamas.”
The State Department would not address Grassley’s concerns about the slow pace of additions to the federal backlist, saying it does “not comment on congressional correspondence.” It also would not address similar questions posed by the Free Beacon.
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