U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chief of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is demanding answers from the United Nations about an investigation into staffers at the organization’s Relief Works Agency in the Middle East having participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorism against Israel.
And the U.N.’s deliberate cover-up.
It was the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services that originally investigated 19 UNRWA employees in 2024 and claimed evidence against nine of those individuals was “insufficient” to prove they participated in the terrorism.
It was exposed last year that the investigation had dismissed key Israeli intelligence, including intercepted audio recordings and cell phone data, that connected those UNRWA staffers to Hamas.
Now it is being reported by the Free Beacon that the U.N.’s internal investigation may have been more coverup than anything.
The investigation, the report charged, was “hamstrung and ineffective from day one, according to an independent U.S. review of the U.N. probe, congressional communications, and Western diplomats who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.”
“The shoddy probe ultimately enabled the United Nations to claim that in 9 of the 19 cases under review, the evidence was ‘insufficient to support’ staff involvement in the terror spree, a finding meant to exonerate the agency and discredit Israeli intelligence,” the Free Beacon charged.
The U.S. results were found in a previously unpublished December 2025 report by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s independent inspector general, which concluded U.N. officials placed such tight restrictions on their probe, including an impossibly high burden of proof, that the findings were ultimately useless.
Actually, the USAID IG found “more than 100” UNWRA staff members “served as Hamas combatants or participated in October 7,” a Free Beacon source confirmed.
The USAID report confirmed that the U.N.’s “high standard” to determine participation was used “to dismiss” allegations, the report said.
“What’s well known here in New York is that the U.N. OIOS’ investigation was a complete cover-up,” said one Western diplomat briefed on the findings. “They ignored the obvious, glaring linkages between UNRWA staff and Hamas. Their report gave the [U.N.] Secretary General cover to hide behind a so-called investigation and hope the world would move right along.”
Major deficiencies in the U.N.’s work included a decision to ignore whether UNRWA actually were members of Hamas, and the fact the U.N. didn’t recognize intercepted Hamas communications.
“One of the primary concerns OIOS raised in their report is that they were ‘unable to independently authenticate’ the evidence presented by the Israeli government. This is a problematic statement for two primary reasons,” the USAID said. “First, the physical material presented by the Israeli government would be considered ‘collected enemy materials,’ given that they were obtained from Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization in the United States and other countries. It is thus unreasonable to believe that anyone could independently authenticate the materials.”
Further, the report charges there was “no evidence” cited by the U.N. “to suggest that the materials were not authentic.”
Actually, the Free Beacon has reported there are some 1,500 UNRWA-linked individuals suspected of terror ties.
Grassley is asking the U.N. why its investigation refused to consider Hamas “affiliation or membership” during its investigation, and the records to support that, as well as how the U.N. is making sure U.S. tax dollars are not going to terrorist groups.
Send the records, the senator insists.
The Free Beacon noted that even when UNRWA fired workers “in the face of uinsurmountable evidence of ties to Hamas’ military,” “it left open the possibility they could be rehired elsewhere and work on U.S taxpayer-funded projects.”
“The characterization of their termination allows these individuals to seek further employment with other NGOs or U.N. organizations who may potentially receive U.S. taxpayer funding for foreign assistance in Gaza,” the USAID inspector general warned. “Absent robust vetting protocols, the likelihood for recirculation of these individuals into the aid sector is very high.”
The U.N. declined to address the results of the USAID review.
But, the report confirmed, “A senior Trump administration official familiar with the matter said the findings are privately motivating the Western donor countries on which UNRWA is dependent to consider pulling their funding.”
An official in the U.S. State Department confirmed UNRWA does not get any U.S. tax money at this point, as, “The administration has determined UNRWA is irredeemably compromised and now seeks its full dismantlement.”
