The State Department formally added three more United Nations Relief and Works Agency school teachers to a first-of-its-kind blacklist after an ongoing U.S. investigation concluded that the teachers participated in Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror spree and held Israelis captive, the Washington Free Beacon can reveal. It’s the latest embarrassment for the United Nations, which has delegated most of its Gaza relief work to UNRWA even though the agency is fully infiltrated by Hamas.
The Trump administration’s September 24 order bars the three UNRWA staffers from working on all U.S. taxpayer-funded aid projects for the next decade, blocking them from circulating into other U.N. humanitarian groups.
The three UNRWA teachers—revealed as Rami Mohammad Sabbah, Mamdouh Husain Al Qaq, and Yusuf Zedan El Hawajri—doubled as Hamas footsoldiers who entered Israel on Oct. 7 to kill and capture Israeli citizens, according to a nonpublic investigative summary prepared by the United States Agency for International Development’s independent inspector general and obtained exclusively by the Free Beacon.
The State Department has now added a total of four UNRWA staffers to a still-growing federal blacklist that will prevent them from joining any U.N. agencies involved in the Gaza reconstruction project. The USAID inspector general’s office, a law enforcement entity separate from the largely defunct USAID, has referred more than 100 current and former UNRWA staffers for similar action, and U.S. officials familiar with the matter told the Free Beacon that further additions to the blacklist are likely forthcoming.
While UNRWA has fired a total of 70 Gaza-based employees, largely in response to the USAID inspector general’s probe, its administrative action does not prevent them from moving to other U.N.-backed humanitarian groups that are working on American aid projects in Gaza. The State Department’s blacklist—built as a result of the USAID inspector general’s landmark findings—ensures that Hamas-linked UNRWA staff will not be eligible to work inside Gaza, benefit from American funding, and infiltrate the massive reconstruction project the United States is now standing up.
“The USAID inspector general’s continued investigation, finding definitive links between UNRWA and Hamas, has opened the eyes of the international community as to why Secretary of State [Marco] Rubio deemed UNRWA a ‘subsidiary of Hamas,'” a senior U.S. official briefed on the ongoing investigation told the Free Beacon. “This was quite evident last week at the U.N. General Assembly. The winds are finally shifting.”
The three latest UNRWA teachers to be blacklisted were independently confirmed by the USAID inspector general as Hamas operatives who either kidnapped Israeli civilians on Israeli soil on Oct. 7 or colluded with others to hold those taken back to Gaza and held hostage, according to the investigatory summary reviewed by the Free Beacon. The findings directly undercut longstanding claims by UNRWA that only a few of its employees served in Hamas or other militant groups. The USAID inspector general—in addition to the 100 UNRWA staffers already referred for inclusion on the blacklist—is currently examining more than 1,500 terror-tied individuals as part of its ongoing probe into terrorist infiltration at UNRWA and other U.N. agencies.
Sabbah, for instance, is listed as “a former UNRWA school teacher and Hamas military operative in the Deir el Balah Battalion.” Federal investigators obtained proof that Sabbah “engaged in kidnapping operations” during the terror attack, when some 200 Israelis were abducted by Hamas.
El Hawajri also doubled as an “UNRWA school teacher and Hamas operative for the Deir el Balah Battalion,” according to the USAID inspector general’s office. He “allegedly collaborated with other individuals involved in receiving and holding civilian hostages beginning on October 7, 2023.”
Al Qaq, meanwhile, was an “UNRWA school teacher” who served as “an operative of the Rafah Brigade of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad” group, a Hamas offshoot active in Gaza, according to Hamas military records reviewed by the USAID inspector general. Al Qaq was acting in this capacity when he “participated” in the Oct. 7 attack, though the investigatory summary does not detail his actions in full.
In late February of this year, as the Free Beacon exclusively reported, the Trump administration added its first UNRWA staffer to the unprecedented federal blacklist: UNRWA school principal Hafez Mousa Mohammed Mousa, who served as “an operative of the Hamas East Jabaliya Battalion and coordinated communications with other suspected Hamas members” on Oct. 7. “That action represented the first known debarment by the U.S. of a terrorist affiliated with a U.N. agency responsible for humanitarian assistance programming,” according to the USAID inspector general.
All of those included on the federal blacklist “are now in a public database via www.sam.gov that U.S. funded organizations, whether required by law or as a best practice, can search” in order to determine if individuals working on taxpayer-backed aid projects are complicit in terrorism.
The issue has generated significant congressional interest. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) requested in late August that Foggy Bottom brief him directly about “the status of the debarment investigations for the one hundred-plus UNRWA staff” still slated for inclusion on the blacklist, the Free Beacon exclusively reported at the time. Grassley expressed additional concern over what some have described as the United Nations’ own attempts to “cover-up” UNRWA staff involvement in Oct. 7.
A State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon that strict “oversight continues to be a major priority for all department funding for programs inside Gaza, and we retain the right to halt any program if malfeasance is found.” The spokesman emphasized that UNRWA “has been totally infiltrated by Hamas and terrorist sympathizers.” The Trump administration, the State Department added, “has determined UNRWA is irredeemably compromised and now seeks its full dismantlement.”
The USAID inspector general’s latest investigative update is certain to increase pressure on UNRWA as it seeks to repair its tainted image and secure future funding from Western donor countries, many of which froze their contributions after it became clear the group’s employees participated in Oct. 7.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s former leader, told the Associated Press last week that officials with the Trump-led Board of Peace held meetings with the humanitarian group on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. The report suggested that, behind the scenes, some may still be willing to permit UNRWA’s continued operation in Gaza.
The board, responding on X, clarified that UNRWA cannot be trusted to function inside Gaza.
“The Board of Peace’s policy as it relates to UNRWA’s involvement in Gaza is unchanged,” it wrote. “We will only work with trusted partners who will deliver for the people of Gaza and contribute to a deradicalized Strip. UNRWA fails on those litmus tests.”
The senior U.S. official who spoke to the Free Beacon further made clear that the USAID inspector general’s investigation will be vital to the Board of Peace’s reconstruction work in Gaza.
“Whether you were a Hamas terrorist on October 7, or held and murdered hostages in the days after, the USAID inspector general’s investigation is ensuring that future American or Board of Peace-funded aid organizations do not hire Hamas terrorists posing as educators or humanitarian aid workers,” the official said.
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