- The non-governmental organization UN Watch responded to news that Hamas today admitted that the head of the UNRWA teachers union in Lebanon, who was eliminated by an Israeli airstrike, was the Hamas leader in Lebanon. Executive Director Hillel Neuer issued the following comment:
“The world is a safer place now that justice was delivered to Fathi al-Sharif, the Hamas terror chief in Lebanon. His death is a measure of justice for the many victims of Hamas, including Americans and Israelis alike.”
“The world is also safer because al-Sharif was a leader of UNRWA, overseeing the education of 40,000 Palestinian children as head of the teachers union in Lebanon. Through that position, and as principal of a large UNRWA school, he was able not only to recruit operatives, but to brainwash generations of Palestinians to engage in terrorism. Now at least one preacher of hate and terror is gone.”
“The UN cannot say that they didn’t know. Again and again, we urged UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini to fire al-Sharif. We gave them a huge dossier with the evidence.”
“Just yesterday, I wrote to Lazzarini on Twitter: Every day that you refuse to fire Fathi al-Sharif confirms your open support for terrorism. And I resent him the dossier.
“Everyone at UNRWA knew. Yet they refused to act.”
“Even as school principal al-Sharif openly incited terrorism on social media for over a decade, UNRWA did nothing. They failed to fire or even condemn their school principal for being a Hamas terror chief. Only this year, after UN Watch mobilized international pressure, did they finally slap him on the wrist with a suspension - while for months insisting that that they were conducting “an investigation.”
Yet al-Sharif was openly promoting Hamas terrorism, including on his Facebook page, and the Lebanese media reported that he was a top Hamas official. UNRWA’s “investigation” was a sham.
“Today we are calling on Lazzarini to resign. He and his agency handed the keys of UNRWA schools to a terror chief, to oversee the education of Palestinians for generations, funded by the taxpayers of all Western countries.”
