As part of several documents released today from a larger trove exposing UNRWA’s widespread complicity with terrorists, UN Watch has revealed that UNRWA’s previous head Pierre Krahenbuhl met repeatedly with leaders of Palestinian terrorist organizations, including one meeting where he called for their covert partnership and unity. The practice has continued under UNRWA’s current commissioner Philippe Lazzarini.
At a gathering in Beirut in February 2017, Krahenbuhl met with the Hamas chief of foreign relations, Ali Baraka, who was recently indicted by the U.S. government for “heinous crimes.” Baraka managed Hamas ties with Tehran and other regimes including Syria and Iraq. Days after the Hamas massacre of October 7th, Baraka claimed that the group had been planning the attack for two years, and he revealed the existence since 2021 of a Palestinian Joint Operations Room among the various factions. “We made them think that Hamas was busy with governing Gaza, and that it wanted to focus on the 2.5 million Palestinians there, and has abandoned the resistance altogether. All the while, under the table, Hamas was preparing for this big attack,” said Baraka.
The head of UNRWA at the same gathering also met with Abu Imad al-Rifai, the leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Lebanon, who boasted about sending a wave of suicide bombers to Baghdad in 2003 to kill American and British troops.
At the meeting, UNRWA’s Krahenbuhl emphasized the “spirit of partnership” between the terrorist groups and UNRWA. He invited them to privately challenge any UNRWA decision, which he could then change or “tear up,” while also urging that their “discussions not be made public.”
If their meetings were to be publicized, said Krahenbuhl, who now heads the International Red Cross, that “could challenge our credibility” - and “lead to a loss of trust between donor countries and UNRWA, which might result in reduced or even terminated funding.”
In the discussions with the terror chiefs, Krahenbuhl acknowledged that UNRWA’s role was not primarily about aid distribution. “We will not abandon the role entrusted to us, to be the historical witness to the injustice that has befallen the Palestinian people,” he said.
