Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) briefs reporters at the UN Headquarters in New York City, US, on Sept. 21, 2023. Photo: John Lamparski/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect

Dozens of protesters on Wednesday gathered in front of the Jerusalem office of the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, accusing the UN body of supporting the Hamas terror group and calling for the closure of the facility.

“The Hamas branch in Jerusalem must be closed now,” demonstrators chanted, along with similar slogans.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) — the global organization’s agency dedicated solely to the refugees and descendants of Palestinians who fled during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence — has long come under fire for promoting terrorism and antisemitism. Recently, agency staff have been accused of participating in and supporting Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.

Earlier this month, for example, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), an Israeli watchdog group, published research confirming two elementary school teachers hired by UNRWA participated in the Hamas atrocities.

The findings came after Impact-se released a separate report in November revealing that at least 14 teachers at UNRWA-run schools had praised the Oct. 7 pogrom.

An investigation by UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO that monitors the UN, independently found that a group of 3,000 teachers working in Gaza for UNRWA glorified and celebrated the massacre in an internal Telegram group. According to the findings, UN Watch found “abhorrent antisemitism and support for jihadi terrorism by UNRWA staff on social media… Teachers … celebrated Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre while at the same time asking when their UNRWA salaries will be paid.”

UNRWA has fired 12 staffers who allegedly took part in the Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel, although the agency has denied that it promotes antisemitism or terrorism, citing its efforts to distribute humanitarian aid in Gaza. The UN agency has also accused Israel of forcing Hamas detainees to falsely admit connections to UNRWA, an allegation denied by Israeli authorities.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said earlier this month that over 450 UNRWA members were affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another terrorist group in Gaza.

Other reports have accused the UN agency of promoting incitement against Israel and Jews. For example, a 2023 joint report by Impact-se and UN Watch found that UNRWA employees had created classroom material celebrating the firebombing of a Jewish bus as a “barbecue party,” encouraging students to pursue jihad and martyrdom, erasing Israel from maps, and encouraging students to “liberate the homeland” with “their blood,” among other examples of incitement to radicalism.

Amid such scrutiny, several major donor countries to UNRWA have suspended payments to the agency. This included the US, the largest donor to UNRWA to which it gave over $371 million in 2023.

The White House and the US Congress this week reached a deal to halt funding to UNRWA until March 2025 — after November’s presidential election — as part of a military funding bill that allocated aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s leading 2024 candidate, cut funding to UNRWA in 2018 — a move that was ultimately reversed when current President Joe Biden took office. Biden is set to face Trump in the general election.

UNRWA’s future role in Gaza after the Israel-Hamas war ends has been a point of discussion in the Jewish state. Hebrew media reported recently that the Israeli government has outlined plans to root out the agency completely from Gaza following the war.