As a member of Israel’s peace movement, I have always believed that strangers can become partners. On October 7, my belief was shaken to the core when my 84-year-old mother, Ditza, was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Scenarios played out in my head, over and over, about who had seen fit to kidnap my mother and where she was being held. I imagined her in a deep, dark tunnel, with angry, armed young men lurching out from the shadows.
But it turned out that my mother had not been held at gunpoint in Gaza by a gang of fanatical young men. Instead, as she revealed after she was released on Nov. 28 in the hostage deal, Hamas had handed her off to a man named Abed. Abed had kept my mother locked in a small room of his home, with little food and no access to medication for almost two months. He told my mother that he was a teacher at an UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) school. A perfect stranger, instead of becoming one of this war’s angels, Abed ended up as just another of its many demons.
It emerged that my mother was not the only hostage who had been kidnapped or held captive by UNRWA employees, but the ties between the agency and Hamas go much further than kidnappings alone. Weapons, tunnels and server farms were found in and underneath UNRWA facilities.
As news started to break about the involvement of UNRWA staff in the horrific atrocities of October 7, many countries, including Canada, took the right step in pausing their funding. This move reflected growing concerns over the agency’s affiliations and its ability to remain impartial. While many, including Canadian authorities, called for a thorough investigation into the allegations before considering further financial contributions, funding was unfortunately resumed with no evidence of any systemic change.
Mere months after it had been revealed that my mother had been held hostage by an UNRWA teacher, the agency was praised in the Arab press as being “indispensable to any peace deal” in Gaza. Canada, announcing an end to its pause in funding, said the agency played a “vital role.” Despite the insistence of such declarations however, UNRWA is vital only to Hamas.
A lawsuit launched in the U.S. against UNRWA by more than 100 October 7 victims and their families, including my mother, aims to prove that the agency has funnelled $1 billion to Hamas over the years by insisting that its employees be paid in U.S. dollars. UNRWA staff have to convert their dollars into Israeli shekels through Hamas money-changers, who take a commission.
It pains me that Abed will go back to teaching in his UNRWA classroom while Hamas restocks its storage cupboards with guns. We must finally bring this horrifying war to a close with a ceasefire and the return of the hostages. But after the dust settles, I fear that my children will never be able to trust strangers who were taught by their grandmother’s kidnapper.
Gazans will need a lot of help to get back on their feet, and I continue to hope that one day we will live side by side in peace. Canada’s decision to continue to funnel much of that assistance through UNRWA is a mistake that will only help to bring about an avoidable repeat of this awful war. The United States and Switzerland have both pulled funding for UNRWA; Canada should correct course and follow suit.
Special to National Post
Neta Heiman Mina is a social media manager who grew up in Kibbutz Nir Oz and now lives in Haifa with her family.