https://unwatch.org/unrwa-staff-stealing-and-selling-humanitarian-aid-gazans-report/
UNRWA staff are stealing aid and selling it for profit, while those who report it face reprisals, according to numerous reports published by Palestinians in an UNRWA-related chatroom.
The posts expose a deep frustration by employees that senior UNRWA employees are engaged in the abuses, and that the agency is doing nothing about it. This comes amid a recent call by UNRWA Commissioner-General Phillipe Lazzarini for countries to increase direct cash assistance to Gazans because, although “there is more food available… it still does not mean that the food is accessible.”
The chatroom is run by a former UNRWA employee, Haitham al-Sayyed, who was removed from UNRWA in 2016 after he publicly called out the agency for hiding an UNRWA school map that denied the existence of Israel, covered up with a white cloth to hide it from the cameras while UN chief Ban Ki-moon was holding a press conference in June 2016.
In the 17 years he worked for UNRWA, al-Sayyed created several chat rooms for staff and educators to share posts, many of which feature antisemitism, incitement to hatred and Jihadi terrorism.
Today, al-Sayyed continues to operate these chat rooms where he disseminates information about UNRWA salaries and other agency news relevant to employees. Despite recent scrutiny of UNRWA promotion of terorism, and promises of reform, the chat rooms continue to thrive with posts from thousands of employees who were recently celebrating Iran’s attack on Israel.
While Haitham al-Sayyed was supposedly fired from UNRWA, he is still considered by many in the chat rooms as an important figure in the organization who holds sway with the senior administration. UNRWA staff, frustrated by inaction and even complicity of senior staff in these thefts, have thus resorted to sharing heir grievances to Haitham in the hope that he can get UNRWA’s top officials to listen.
On January 6th, Haitham posted the following message, as sent to him by an UNRWA employee which outlines these allegations in detail (names have been redacted by Haitham):
“I am an agency employee working in the emergency at a shelter school… In fact, out of honesty and speaking the word of truth, I agreed with my colleagues to tell the truth, I am completely dissatisfied with the school administration and its honesty in distributing aid due to the thefts, perhaps this was the fault of the official who had the responsibility of choosing a good man to manage the center, unfortunately, the center is managed by a teacher… the displaced people in the external shelter do not get their right to food and non-food aid, but rather it is distributed at night and sold in front of our eyes, for example with baby pampers, which we were surprised the next day that 150 bags were distributed at night and some of the displaced people did not get their right to it, and everyone who speaks is transferred, including Mr. A. Raed Al … And A. Awad…
They did not tolerate what happened in the school, especially the theft of diesel, as our school remained for more than a month without electricity or it came for a few minutes under the pretext that the motor was in another school, and the thief was exposed and the principal was informed, but to this day he is still working with us so that I feel like vomiting when I see him.
The biggest motivation to publish this letter is because of a young engineer with great morals who was in charge of the school. He was in charge of the store, and because he prevented the attempted theft in the store by the night administration, but then he was arbitrarily transferred on charges of embezzlement, this burned our hearts for him because he is the only trustee in the school. I add another piece of information for you the evening manager was at Khawla School, but its morning manager transferred him, and unfortunately, the morning administration is handled by a female teacher… Unfortunately, she did not take any steps to stop these crimes until we became suspicious that she is complicit with them, and unfortunately, this evening manager had a hand and support in the operations, so it was very easy for him to transfer whoever he wants on charges of embezzlement.
I tell you of another example that happened before my eyes on the day of the distribution of rice meals, where two bags of rice rolls were hidden in the administration cabinets and the displaced people were deprived of it, I did not find anyone to whom I could disclose this secret, so I really ask you to send our complaint with names to whoever can take over the investigation inside this shelter, especially in the non-food aid department.
Yesterday, we visited the monitoring department and there was an imbalance in the number of tarpaulins, where the director gave a number other than the number provided by the person who keeps the tarpaulins in his private room, to our surprise there were 16 undistributed tarpaulins and this is what disturbed us, why were they kept? Is it for sale? Note that in front of my eyes, more than one person came to ask for a tarp, so I ask you to communicate this speech to those in charge to open an investigation to reach all IDPs, whether inside or outside the shelter.” (message screenshot)
In the same conversation, another group member named Dr. Izzat Shatat wrote:
“Open thefts from shelter workers… Rami Alat… The director of a school warehouse came now with 50 cartons of food that were distributed in UNRWA schools and sold them to a merchant for 350 shekels per carton, equivalent to $100… How did he take out this amount of cartons? Where is the administration about this?” (message screenshot)
Another UNRWA employee who goes by ‘A. Islam’ on telegram added that at his school the same thing was happening:
“The school where I was displaced is the same. Although I am a tenured teacher, I went to the administration to volunteer with them, the director told me that he had enough volunteers and the volunteers were not tenured. What I saw with my own eyes after the distribution of pampers, where 5 pampers were distributed per child, was that one of the volunteers was returning to her home carrying a full packet of pampers. A truck came to the school carrying canned sweets and tissues that were stolen and sold at the school’s door. Some displaced people saw some workers stealing potatoes at night.” (message screenshot)
UNRWA staff are stealing aid and selling it for profit, while those who report it face reprisals, according to numerous reports published by Palestinians in an UNRWA-related chatroom.
The posts expose a deep frustration by employees that senior UNRWA employees are engaged in the abuses, and that the agency is doing nothing about it. This comes amid a recent call by UNRWA Commissioner-General Phillipe Lazzarini for countries to increase direct cash assistance to Gazans because, although “there is more food available… it still does not mean that the food is accessible.”
The chatroom is run by a former UNRWA employee, Haitham al-Sayyed, who was removed from UNRWA in 2016 after he publicly called out the agency for hiding an UNRWA school map that denied the existence of Israel, covered up with a white cloth to hide it from the cameras while UN chief Ban Ki-moon was holding a press conference in June 2016.
In the 17 years he worked for UNRWA, al-Sayyed created several chat rooms for staff and educators to share posts, many of which feature antisemitism, incitement to hatred and Jihadi terrorism.
Today, al-Sayyed continues to operate these chat rooms where he disseminates information about UNRWA salaries and other agency news relevant to employees. Despite recent scrutiny of UNRWA promotion of terorism, and promises of reform, the chat rooms continue to thrive with posts from thousands of employees who were recently celebrating Iran’s attack on Israel.
UNRWA Staff Stealing Aid
A key recent topic is the stealing and reselling of free humanitarian aid by UNRWA employees.While Haitham al-Sayyed was supposedly fired from UNRWA, he is still considered by many in the chat rooms as an important figure in the organization who holds sway with the senior administration. UNRWA staff, frustrated by inaction and even complicity of senior staff in these thefts, have thus resorted to sharing heir grievances to Haitham in the hope that he can get UNRWA’s top officials to listen.
On January 6th, Haitham posted the following message, as sent to him by an UNRWA employee which outlines these allegations in detail (names have been redacted by Haitham):
“I am an agency employee working in the emergency at a shelter school… In fact, out of honesty and speaking the word of truth, I agreed with my colleagues to tell the truth, I am completely dissatisfied with the school administration and its honesty in distributing aid due to the thefts, perhaps this was the fault of the official who had the responsibility of choosing a good man to manage the center, unfortunately, the center is managed by a teacher… the displaced people in the external shelter do not get their right to food and non-food aid, but rather it is distributed at night and sold in front of our eyes, for example with baby pampers, which we were surprised the next day that 150 bags were distributed at night and some of the displaced people did not get their right to it, and everyone who speaks is transferred, including Mr. A. Raed Al … And A. Awad…
They did not tolerate what happened in the school, especially the theft of diesel, as our school remained for more than a month without electricity or it came for a few minutes under the pretext that the motor was in another school, and the thief was exposed and the principal was informed, but to this day he is still working with us so that I feel like vomiting when I see him.
The biggest motivation to publish this letter is because of a young engineer with great morals who was in charge of the school. He was in charge of the store, and because he prevented the attempted theft in the store by the night administration, but then he was arbitrarily transferred on charges of embezzlement, this burned our hearts for him because he is the only trustee in the school. I add another piece of information for you the evening manager was at Khawla School, but its morning manager transferred him, and unfortunately, the morning administration is handled by a female teacher… Unfortunately, she did not take any steps to stop these crimes until we became suspicious that she is complicit with them, and unfortunately, this evening manager had a hand and support in the operations, so it was very easy for him to transfer whoever he wants on charges of embezzlement.
I tell you of another example that happened before my eyes on the day of the distribution of rice meals, where two bags of rice rolls were hidden in the administration cabinets and the displaced people were deprived of it, I did not find anyone to whom I could disclose this secret, so I really ask you to send our complaint with names to whoever can take over the investigation inside this shelter, especially in the non-food aid department.
Yesterday, we visited the monitoring department and there was an imbalance in the number of tarpaulins, where the director gave a number other than the number provided by the person who keeps the tarpaulins in his private room, to our surprise there were 16 undistributed tarpaulins and this is what disturbed us, why were they kept? Is it for sale? Note that in front of my eyes, more than one person came to ask for a tarp, so I ask you to communicate this speech to those in charge to open an investigation to reach all IDPs, whether inside or outside the shelter.” (message screenshot)
In the same conversation, another group member named Dr. Izzat Shatat wrote:
“Open thefts from shelter workers… Rami Alat… The director of a school warehouse came now with 50 cartons of food that were distributed in UNRWA schools and sold them to a merchant for 350 shekels per carton, equivalent to $100… How did he take out this amount of cartons? Where is the administration about this?” (message screenshot)
Another UNRWA employee who goes by ‘A. Islam’ on telegram added that at his school the same thing was happening:
“The school where I was displaced is the same. Although I am a tenured teacher, I went to the administration to volunteer with them, the director told me that he had enough volunteers and the volunteers were not tenured. What I saw with my own eyes after the distribution of pampers, where 5 pampers were distributed per child, was that one of the volunteers was returning to her home carrying a full packet of pampers. A truck came to the school carrying canned sweets and tissues that were stolen and sold at the school’s door. Some displaced people saw some workers stealing potatoes at night.” (message screenshot)
