The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel must facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip through UN agencies, including UNRWA, ignoring the extent to which UNRWA has been compromised by and works with the Hamas terrorist organization.
ICJ President Yuji Iwasawa stated: “The court finds that Israel has not substantiated its allegations that a significant part of UNRWA’s employees are ‘members of Hamas… or other terrorist factions."
Iwasawa also said that Israel failed to provide sufficient evidence that a significant number of Hamas terrorists were employed by UNRWA. “The court finds that Israel has not substantiated its allegations that a significant part of UNRWA’s employees are ‘members of Hamas… or other terrorist factions," he said.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said in response: "The [ICJ’s] decision is a shameful decision. They are blaming Israel for not cooperating with UN organs…They should be blaming themselves. Those organs became breeding grounds for terrorists. Take, for example, UNRWA…an organization that supported Hamas for years."
"We will do everything to continue to protect our people and we expect the ICJ to look at what’s happening today in Gaza with Hamas and not to blame Israel,” Danon said.
UNRWA has long been criticized for its cooperation with Hamas. That criticism has increased since Israel revealed in 2024 that UNRWA staff participated in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks.
It then presented a dossier showing that the UNRWA workers who participated in the Hamas massacre kidnapped a woman, handed out ammunition and actively took part in the massacre at Kibbutz Be’eri, where 97 people were murdered.
Following the Israeli revelations, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced the creation of a review group, headed by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, to look into the Israeli allegations.
The group, which released its report last April, said it found neutrality-related issues" in UNRWA but also claimed that Israel had yet to provide evidence for allegations that a significant number of its staff were members of terrorist organizations.
Emily Damari, a former Hamas hostage who was freed after 470 days in captivity, said that she was held at an UNRWA facility while in captivity.
In April 2025, USAID revealed that the United Nations obstructed an investigation by the American government into the ties between UNRWA employees in Gaza and the Hamas terrorist organization.
The report, titled "USAID OIG’s Investigative Work to Prevent UNRWA Staff Associated With Hamas From Circulating to Other U.S. Government-Funded Aid Organizations," documented how the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) redacted the names of UNRWA employees who had been investigated for alleged ties to Hamas, rendering the documents provided useless for the investigation.
Eitan Fischberger, the journalist who first reported the USAID report, stated that "the United Nations appears to have gone out of its way to obstruct" USAID's investigation.