Today: UNRWA to legitimize Hamas front group at UNHRC panel

GENEVA, – UN Watch urged UNRWA, the relief agency for Palestinians, not to legitimize a Hamas front group known as the “Palestinian Return Center” (PRC) and to stop its Brussels-based representative Elena Mancusi-Materi from addressing a panel event organized today at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

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“By legitimizing a known Hamas front group, this incident only underscores the serious questions raised recently about UNRWA’s neutrality in light of its failure to discipline at least a dozen UNRWA officials who, as documented in our report, are spreading racial hatred and inciting to terrorism on the Internet,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the non-governmental Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch. “UNRWA received more than $600 million from the U.S., the UK, and the EU in 2014 alone,” said Neuer. “Where is the accountability?” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh recently congratulated the PRC for winning UN status as a NGO, despite opposition by The PRC and its leadership have extensive, documented ties with Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union, Canada, Israel, Japan, and the United States, and, its armed wing is designated a terrorist organization by Australia and the United Kingdom. PRC leaders also celebrated the Hamas kidnapping of three Israeli teens, cheered Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, and threatened “punishment” for PLO President and Hamas rival Mahmoud Abbas.

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