USAID Report Claims Over 100 UNRWA Employees Participated in October 7 Attacks

A US Agency for International Development (USAID) entity said it has referred over 100 current and former United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) employees to the State Department for possible participation in Hamas' October 7 terror attack on southern Israel.

Key Details: On Wednesday, the department announced that the USAID Inspector General's Office (USAID OIG) entity has recommended that three former UNRWA employees be debarred – meaning they would be unable to receive state grants or other assistance. It alleged that two were Hamas operatives and another was a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) operative. One has reportedly already been debarred, and a fourth was recommended, though the recommendation was terminated once it was learned he was deceased.

In Other News: Also this week, Israeli forces stormed and seized a UNRWA facility in East Jerusalem. UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said it was the "fifth instance of unauthorized entry by the Israeli authorities in the center since May this year" and follows "other unacceptable breaches" of UNRWA facilities in East Jerusalem.

Politicians Respond: President Trump shared coverage of the story from Just The News (Lean Right bias) on Truth Social. This prompted a response from Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who said, "Thank you, Mr. President, for not being afraid to tell the world the TRUTH about the involvement of UNRWA… Rest assured, Sir, that I am handling the matter personally." Ben Gvir shared a photo of himself sitting at the director's desk in the seized UNRWA facility.

For Context: The USAID OIG was established in 1980 and has five offices worldwide, including one in Tel Aviv. In February 2025, President Trump signed an executive order that cut funding to the UNRWA.

Past Storylines: The UNRWA was the subject of widespread media and governmental scrutiny in early 2024, and AllSides followed the storyline closely.

• January: Several Western countries, including the US, paused funding to the UNRWA, though they all later resumed it.
• January: The Wall Street Journal (Center) reported that an Israeli intelligence dossier alleged 10% of the UNRWA's 13,000 employees were connected to Hamas or PIJ. The UNRWA subsequently fired the staffers in question.
• February: Israel said it discovered a Hamas compound beneath the UNRWA's Gaza headquarters, though the UNRWA denied knowing it existed.
• March: CNN (Lean Left) reported seeing an unpublished UNRWA report that accused Israel of detaining and coercing staffers into "making false confessions about the agency's ties to Hamas."
• April: An independent UN-sanctioned review said Israel hadn't provided evidence for its claim that a significant share of UNRWA staffers were connected to terror organizations.
• August: WIRED (Left) accused Israel of running a Google Ads campaign that aimed to undermine the UNRWA's efforts.

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How The Media Covered It: The story was not the most widely covered. A few outlets, including Voz Media (Right) and Middle East Eye (Left), mentioned or republished Just The News' coverage. Israeli outlet Jerusalem Post (Center) reported that the USAID action "represented the first known debarment by the US of a terrorist affiliated with a UN agency responsible for humanitarian assistance programming."

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