UNRWA: Is Germany Empowering Hamas?

Germany’s latest cash largesse to the Palestinians, in the staggering total of 913 million euros over the past two years, has infuriated Israel supporters worldwide. 38% of that aid has gone through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), an agency increasingly exposed as a pipeline for Hamas’s terror network in Gaza. This revelation, presented in a February 19, 2025, response to a parliamentary question posed by FDP MP Claudia Raffelhueschen, reveals an unsettling reality: Germany, which has a moral commitment to combat antisemitism, is, funding a movement irrevocably tied to the architects of the horrors of October 7, 2023 – this is a shame!

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UNRWA, established in 1949 to assist Palestinian refugees, has long been hailed as a humanitarian lifeline. But mounting evidence reveals it to be a corrupted organization, infested and manipulated by Hamas. In the wake of the October 7 massacre, Israel revealed grotesque ties between UNRWA and the terrorists. Reports said that UNRWA employees were among the perpetrators of the attack, which resulted in over 1,200 deaths and involved hundreds of hostages being taken, including German-Israeli Shiri Bibas and her two young children, Ariel and Kfir. Hamas bunkers beneath the Gaza headquarters complexes of UNRWA were discovered by Israeli forces as well; arms cached in its facilities and Jew-murdering textbooks in its schools.

The corruption runs deep. One Israeli intelligence report alleges that 10% of the 12,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza have Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad ties; after all, that is roughly 1,200 individuals. Individual cases include a UNRWA teacher and Hamas commander involved in the Be’eri massacre and a social worker suspected of helping steal the body of an Israeli soldier. Hostages, like British-Israeli Emily Damari, have testified to having been held in UNRWA facilities. They are not individual cases but symptoms of a system failure, a failure that Germany still funds.

Despite these incriminating revelations, Germany’s response has been infuriatingly tepid. It sent 206 million euros to UNRWA in 2023, followed by 142 million in 2024, as part of a greater 473 million and 440 million euros in total Palestinian aid for those years. After briefly suspending payments in early 2024 following the October 7 charges, Berlin resumed funding, ignoring calls for accountability. Unlike the United States, which has renewed its UNRWA funding prohibition through March 2025, or Israel, which severed relations entirely, Germany doubled down, citing UNRWA’s “indispensable” role in Gaza’s humanitarian emergency, a humanitarian emergency stoked by the very agency it indirectly subsidizes.

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This inaction is indefensible. The FDP junior coalition partner has been calling for tighter control, with MP Bijan Djir-Sarai condemning “German tax money” spending on inhuman activities. However, the SPD, Green, and FDP coalition in office tends to be unanimous in support, with only the AfD advocating stopping funding outright. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s vow in January 2025 to raise aid following the ceasefire, including via UNRWA, confirms this obstinate resolve, even as Israel’s Knesset continues to push legislation to ban the agency’s operations in its country by late April 2025.

Why so laziness? Germany hides behind the humanitarianist cover of necessity, claiming no other choice exists to deliver aid. This is a cop-out. Other UN organizations, such as UNICEF or the World Food Programme, are already present in Gaza. Germany’s refusal to shift is part of a larger unwillingness to face unpleasant realities, a postwar legacy of not wanting to become entangled in Middle Eastern politics. But in 2025, with a tenuous ceasefire holding since January 20, that can no longer be an excuse. Berlin’s continued funding of UNRWA is a choice, one that empowers Hamas and double-crosses Israel.

Germany’s position as UNRWA’s biggest donor (excluding the EU, to which it gives most) adds an international element to the scandal. While other countries such as the US, Canada, and Australia cut funding following the October 7 revelations, Germany’s 913 million euros over two years overwhelmed their donations. This money, German taxpayer money, is transferred into a machine where fairness is impossible, according to the April 2024 Colonna report, which, praising UNRWA workers’ efforts, acknowledged its design flaws and recommended 50 fixes. But there’s still Hamas domination, and German funds fuel the operation.

It’s an outrage that echoes beyond Berlin, tainting the global community’s reputation. How can the world claim it’s against terrorism and antisemitism and yet compensate its patrons?

Germany must awaken. Its historical commitment to the Jewish nation requires more than superficial rhetoric; it requires action. Redirection of funding to reliable surrogates, imposing strict oversight, and joining forces with Israel to destroy UNRWA’s Hamas-infused infrastructure are non-negotiable steps. Berlin’s current course risks squandering that chance, entrenching Hamas’s hegemony under a humanitarian veneer.

Germany is at a crossroads. Will it do the honorable thing and take Israel’s side against Hamas, or go on playing this nasty game?