UNRWA Official Spoke at Event for Hamas-Linked Charity

The spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the scandal-ridden UN body that works with Palestinian refugees, spoke Monday at an event sponsored by the UK-based charity Interpal, which was designated a terrorist entity by the U.S. Treasury Department for financing the Palestinian terror group Hamas.

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness spoke at an event for Interpal along with the charity’s chairman, Ibrahim Hewitt, at an event held at Portcullis House, an office of the British Parliament, according to Foundation for Defense of Democracies research analyst Kate Havard, who first reported the incident Wednesday.

UNRWA, the United Nation’s Palestinian refugee assistance agency, is no stranger to controversy. While it provides some valuable services to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and the Palestinian diaspora, it is also the only U.N. agency that has failed to settle its population. In fact, UNRWA has bestowed refugee status upon the descendants of the original Palestinian refugees from the 1948 and 1967, thereby increasing their numbers and making the problem more difficult to solve.

Last week, several members of UNRWA’s staff were suspended or otherwise disciplined for a series of Facebook posts inciting violence against Israelis. UNRWA also came under fire during last summer’s war between Hamas and Israel, when reports suggested that UNRWA provided military assistance in at least three instances to Hamas. In addition, Interpal (also called The Palestinian Relief and Development Fund) is a member of the Union of Good, a Hamas umbrella charity branch that was designated by the U.S. Treasury in 2008.

Interpal is not a designated terrorist organization in the United Kingdom. The U.K.’s Charity Commission announced in 2013 that while Interpal’s checks on where its funding was going had been “inadequate,” Interpal would still be allowed to operate in the U.K. – with restrictions. For example, one of Interpal’s trustees, Essam Mustafa, was ordered to resign from his post as the General Secretary of the Union of Good. And due to the banking restrictions that come with a U.S. Treasury designation, Interpal cannot accept credit card donations, or, according to the Telegraph, even have “regular banking facilities.”