A Gazan religious school funded by U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) held a contest for children to illustrate "the suffering of our brave prisoners inside the occupation’s prisons," just a month before the State Department awarded the embattled U.N. charity more than $200 million. This latest example of UNICEF’s ties to anti-Israel extremists could fuel fresh concerns about American investment in the troubled U.N. charity.
Al Itqan Educational School in Gaza, a religious school for children which boasted as recently as February about receiving "generous funding" from UNICEF, announced in late April that it was organizing a "drawing competition" around "the prisoners' issue," a reference to Palestinian militants in Israeli detention for terrorism and related crimes. Just several weeks later, the school hosted Musbah Abd Rabbuh, director of the Waeed Association for Prisoners and Released Prisoners, which had been designated just months earlier as a covert Hamas support network by the Trump administration. Previously public photos posted on Al Itqan’s Facebook page show Rabbuh speaking in a visibly marked UNICEF structure with several children’s drawings hanging on the wall. The post became inaccessible on Wednesday afternoon, after the Washington Free Beacon sent an inquiry to UNICEF that went unanswered.
"We will be collecting drawings related to the prisoners’ issue" on May 3, the school announced in an Arabic-language Facebook posting that was independently translated for the Free Beacon by the Middle East Media Research Institute, an organization that monitors extremist rhetoric. "The best drawing that expresses the suffering of our brave prisoners inside the occupation’s prisons."
"Don’t forget the issue of our prisoners," the flyer added. "It is our issue too."
Israel’s enemies have sought in recent months to criticize Israel’s treatment of Palestinian detainees as a way to discredit the war effort. Anti-Israel nonprofits such as the Committee to Protect Journalists have worked with news organizations like the New York Times to disseminate outlandish allegations.
The school’s May competition, which awarded the winner "a prize by the school administration," was held just over a month before the State Department announced a fresh injection of "more than $218 million in assistance to UNICEF" as part of a $1 billion "humanitarian and disaster response" funding package, fueling questions from watchdog groups about how America’s latest investment in the U.N. organization will be spent.
While the State Department maintained that the funds would be contingent on "rigorous performance standards" and "measurable results," the research organization NGO Monitor expressed concern that UNICEF’s spending in Gaza will help pay for the radical programming most recently seen in Al Itqan’s classrooms.
"Open source evidence clearly shows that UNICEF, like UNRWA and other U.N. agencies that operate in Gaza, has cooperated with individuals and NGOs linked to terror groups," said professor Gerald M. Steinberg, founder and president of NGO Monitor, a research organization that first unearthed evidence of the radical programming at Al Itqan. "As NGO Monitor reported last year, UNICEF coordinates distribution of cash payments and vouchers with a Hamas ministry in Gaza, likely resulting in significant diversion of donor funds. And this case provides another example of UNICEF's failure to vet their partners."
"Until these procedures are changed fundamentally," Steinberg said, "the U.S. government should immediately freeze grants to this irresponsible U.N. agency."
A State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon that the $218 million in funding to UNICEF "does not support any education or school-based activities—only life-saving activities, including rapid response to natural disasters and complex emergencies, in addition to supporting malnourished crisis-affected women and children."
The spokesman added that the U.S. condemns "any glorification of terrorism in schools, especially under a UNICEF banner," and called on the humanitarian organization to conduct "a full investigation" into how its funds in Gaza are being spent. "The United States will continue to do its due diligence to ensure taxpayer dollars are never used to support such behavior."
The since-deleted pictures of Waeed Association director Rabbuh meeting with Al Itqan school officials inside a clearly marked UNICEF structure is likely to cause more headaches for a U.N. humanitarian group that has repeatedly come under scrutiny for working with Hamas, along with other U.N. aid groups, including most notably UNRWA.
The since-deleted posting on Al Itqan’s Facebook page touted the meeting as a "token of appreciation" in which officials expressed support for "efforts in activating the ‘Our Prisoners, We Will Not Forget You’ campaign, and praised the level of organization and active participation by students and the teaching staff."
Just three months earlier, the Gaza school thanked UNICEF for "generous funding" that helped students return to school and provided them with "integrated stationery" (pencils and pads) for use in the classroom.
UNICEF did not respond to a subsequent inquiry from the Free Beacon asking if it was aware that the Al Itqan school recently scrubbed portions of its Facebook page that included the Waeed Association official speaking in front of the organization's signage.
