10% of UNRWA Staffers Tied to Terrorist Groups: Report

Roughly 10 percent of staffers with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the international body's aid group for Palestinian refugees, have ties to terrorist groups, according to a Monday Wall Street Journal report.

About 1,200 employees, 10 percent of the agency's 12,000 Gazan workers, are linked to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Journal reported, citing Israeli intelligence reports the Jewish state shared with American officials. The intelligence found that 49 percent of UNRWA staffers had close relatives with official ties to the groups, and 23 percent of male UNRWA employees had ties to Hamas, more than the average rate of 15 percent for the general Gazan male population.

Officials told the Journal that the employees they believed had ties to Hamas were "operatives," meaning they were involved in the terror group's military or political activity.

The intelligence documents, per the paper, were part of a briefing Israeli officials gave to their American counterparts days ago, alleging the participation of 12 UNRWA employees in Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks. The Biden administration suspended aid to the agency following the revelations. UNRWA said it fired those staffers.