A woman identifying herself as a veteran UNRWA teacher in Gaza says educators are encouraging extremism and violence among students, warning that the ideas taking root could help produce another attack like the Hamas led October 7 massacre.
In the video accompanying this report, she describes herself as a 40 year old geography teacher who has worked in the UN agency’s schools for 15 years.
“Teachers are aggressively pushing these ideologies to the students, and inciting them to killing and violence,” she says, according to the clip’s English subtitles.
Her face is blurred and her name is withheld. The recording does not establish when it was filmed, and her employment and the incidents she describes have not been independently verified for this report.
Confronting a colleague over incitement
The woman describes a heated argument with another teacher whom she accuses of promoting violence and extremism among students. She says she challenged the colleague directly, arguing that those ideas were incompatible with their faith.
“I told her that these things are not permissible for us as Muslims,” the subtitles read.
She also recalls a female student who repeatedly spoke to her about killing, violence and destruction. In her account, the messages children absorb are reinforced across their surroundings, including by teachers, families and other students.
“Of course, it goes beyond Hamas. It is bigger than the idea of Hamas,” she says.
She warns that another October 7 style attack could follow, potentially bringing even greater casualties and destruction. That is her assessment of the danger posed by the attitudes she describes, rather than a claim of knowledge about a specific planned attack.
UNRWA staff and the October 7 massacres
The concerns extend beyond classroom rhetoric. On August 5, 2024, the United Nations announced that nine UNRWA employees would have their employment terminated after its Office of Internal Oversight Services found evidence indicating they “may have been involved” in the October 7 attacks.
The investigation examined 19 staff members. It found insufficient evidence in nine other cases and no supporting evidence in one. The UN said investigators could not independently authenticate most of the material held by Israeli authorities, while maintaining that it had sufficient information to terminate the nine employees.
Israel also released details of individual cases. In a March 4, 2024 briefing, the IDF presented an intercepted call that it attributed to a Hamas terrorist employed as an UNRWA elementary school teacher, describing him as boasting about capturing a woman. The military also identified UNRWA school counsellor Bakr Mahmoud Abdallah Darwish and elementary school teacher Mamdouh Hussein Ahmad al-Qak as participants in the massacre, identifying them as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, respectively.
Another case involved Mohammad Abu Itiwi. In an October 24, 2024 statement, the IDF identified him as a Hamas Nukhba commander who led the attack on a roadside bomb shelter near Re’im, participating in the murder and abduction of Israeli civilians. The military said he had worked for UNRWA since July 2022 and was eliminated in a joint IDF and Shin Bet operation on October 23, 2024. UNRWA confirmed to Reuters that he was an employee.
European funding and classroom safeguards
UNRWA receives substantial European public funding. In a June 30, 2026 statement, the European Union said the European Commission provides €82 million annually to the agency under its programme for 2025 to 2027. It also listed an initial €17.6 million humanitarian allocation for 2026 covering several areas of UNRWA’s regional operations.
Concerns about education safeguards are documented separately from this woman’s testimony. A January 8, 2026 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office described problematic content in Palestinian Authority textbooks used in UNRWA schools. It found that UNRWA had reviewed materials and issued guidance to teachers, but that efforts to address the content faced obstacles, including resistance from teachers and communities.
The audit also identified weaknesses in U.S. reporting on those efforts. Its findings provide background on oversight problems; they do not establish the specific incidents described in the video.
UNRWA’s published staff conduct policy says it does not tolerate actions promoting hatred or incitement to violence. The woman’s allegations concern what teachers are communicating to children in practice.
She ends with a call for a comprehensive campaign directed at families, teachers and students, aimed at replacing the ideas she has described with a different outlook.
The goal, in the wording of the video’s subtitles, is “to cultivate ideas of peace, security, and love in their minds.”
