Overlooked USAID OIG Investigation Found UNRWA Staff Tied to Hamas — but the UN Obstructed the Probe

The UN redacted names, withheld records, and made sure American investigators couldn’t identify the Hamas operatives within UNRWA.

While much of the media continues to run cover for Hamas-linked NGOs in Gaza, an overlooked but damning investigative summary published by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Inspector General (USAID OIG) has gone largely unnoticed, and does not appear to have been covered by any media outlets. The document confirmed—one again—what critics of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) have known for years: that the agency has employed Hamas operatives, and that some of them directly participated in the October 7 massacre.

The summary, dated April 14, 2025, outlines USAID OIG’s efforts to prevent U.S. taxpayer-funded aid from falling into the hands of terrorist groups like Hamas. Following the October 7 attacks, the watchdog flagged Gaza as a “high-risk” zone for diversion of American aid and launched a proactive investigation into UNRWA’s role.

According to the summary, USAID OIG “independently found evidence connecting three current or former UNRWA employees to the October 7 terror attacks,” and further identified 14 other staff members—either current or former—as being affiliated with Hamas. Mind you, this is just what USAID found independently, and does not include the 1,462 terror-tied UNRWA staffers from Gaza already identified by Israel, as detailed in a report published earlier this week by the Israeli government.

The USAID OIG Summary.

Instead of cooperating transparently with the U.S. investigation, the United Nations appears to have gone out of its way to obstruct it. The UN’s own Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) did allow USAID OIG to review its internal report into UNRWA staff involvement in the attacks—but only after redacting the names of the implicated individuals. As the USAID OIG bluntly stated: “OIOS redacted the names of subjects, rendering the report unusable for our purposes.”

To make matters worse, UNRWA refused to provide the names of any personnel it terminated in connection with October 7. That means U.S. agencies have no way of knowing whether these individuals simply migrated from one aid group to another—potentially putting them right back on the payroll of U.S.-funded NGOs operating in Gaza.

In response to these findings, USAID OIG referred the information to the State Department’s Office of Inspector General for “administrative enforcement remedies.” While that’s a start, the lack of media scrutiny and broader U.S. government response raises serious concerns about accountability—or lack thereof.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t a case of one or two bad apples slipping through the cracks. This is an institutional failure on the part of UNRWA, compounded by the UN’s refusal to provide even the most basic transparency in the face of a mass terror attack. And yet, even after these revelations, there remains no serious public debate in Washington or Brussels about defunding the agency or holding it to real standards of oversight.

As USAID OIG rightly emphasized, the goal moving forward is to “prevent members of Hamas from circulating from UNRWA to other aid organizations.” That’s a noble and necessary aim—but without full cooperation from the UN and decisive action from donor nations, it may prove impossible.