By A U.S. government watchdog has concluded that the United Nations structured its investigation of UNRWA employees accused of participating in the October 7 Hamas attacks in ways that limited the inquiry and allowed the agency to avoid confronting broader evidence of ties between its staff and the terrorist group.
The previously unpublished December 2025 assessment by the U.S. Agency for International Development inspector general scrutinized a 2024 investigation by the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services into allegations against 19 employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. The U.N. inquiry ultimately found the evidence “insufficient” in nine of those cases.
But the American review identified significant shortcomings in how the investigation was conducted, including what it described as an unusually high evidentiary threshold and a decision to focus narrowly on whether employees directly participated in the October 7 attacks rather than whether they belonged to or maintained ties with Hamas.
U.N. investigators also discounted Israeli intelligence evidence, including intercepted communications and cell-phone data, because they said they were unable to independently authenticate the materials.
“They ignored the obvious, glaring linkages between UNRWA staff and Hamas,” one Western diplomat briefed on the matter told The Washington Free Beacon. “Their report gave the [U.N.] Secretary General cover to hide behind a so-called investigation and hope the world would move right along.”
The USAID inspector general challenged the U.N.’s treatment of the Israeli evidence directly.
“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 U.S. review said the first problem was that some of the evidence consisted of “collected enemy materials” seized from Hamas. The second was that “OIOS presented no evidence to suggest that the materials were not authentic. Rather, they rely on the argument that they were only provided with copies, while the originals remained under the custody of Israeli officials.”
The inspector general said it “has found no evidence to suggest that the authenticity of the materials collected by the Israeli government should be questioned.”
The scope of the U.N. investigation was also substantially narrower than the separate American inquiry. The UN review “did not review whether the UNRWA staff members were current or former members of Hamas,” the U.S. document said.
By contrast, the USAID inspector general’s continuing investigation has examined more than 1,500 people linked to UNRWA and referred more than 100 current or former employees for possible U.S. government blacklisting. UNRWA has also voluntarily terminated 70 employees during the course of the investigation.
The report warned, however, that simply terminating employees does not necessarily prevent them from returning to organizations supported by American taxpayers. Those former workers remain eligible “to seek further employment with other NGOs or U.N. organizations who may potentially receive U.S. taxpayer funding,” creating the possibility that individuals with problematic ties could move between organizations without stronger screening requirements.
The findings have drawn new scrutiny from Congress. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has asked U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to explain how the original investigation was designed and to turn over documents related to the inquiry.
A senior administration official said the U.S. findings “have ripped the veneer off of the U.N.’s shoddy investigation and [are] causing the international community to reconsider future commitments to UNRWA.”
The Trump administration has already ruled out renewed American support for the agency. A State Department spokesman said that “no State Department funding will be provided to UNRWA, which has been totally infiltrated by Hamas and terrorist sympathizers. The Administration has determined UNRWA is irredeemably compromised and now seeks its full dismantlement.”
The controversy adds to years of scrutiny surrounding UNRWA following the October 7 attacks, when Israel accused a number of agency employees of participating in the Hamas assault and alleged much broader connections between UNRWA personnel and the terrorist organization.
Western donor governments are now reconsidering their future support for the agency as additional findings emerge from the American investigation. The United Nations has acknowledged receiving Grassley’s letter but has not publicly responded to the inspector general’s specific criticisms of how its earlier investigation was conducted.
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