UNRWA Confirms Hamas Leader Killed in Israeli Airstrike Was Its Employee
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has confirmed that Fateh Sherif, who was killed in an Israeli air strike today, was the leader of Hamas in Lebanon while also employed as a school principal by UNRWA, the Times of Israel (TOI) reports.
Principal of the UNRWA-run Deir Yassin Secondary School in al-Bass, Sherif was killed in an airstrike on the al-Bass refugee camp in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on September 30, TOI reports.The strike was part of Israel’s ongoing operations against the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon and against Hamas which is centered in Gaza. Sherif’s wife and children were killed with him.
“Fateh Al Sharif was an UNRWA employee who was put on administrative leave without pay in March, and was undergoing an investigation following allegations that UNRWA received about his political activities,” UNRWA told the Times of Israel today.
UNRWA suspended Sherif this year for alleged activities “that are in violation of the Agency’s regulatory framework governing staff conduct.”
Now supporting some five million people, UNRWA was established in 1949 to “to carry out direct relief and works programmes for Palestine refugees” following the Arab-Israeli war that began on May 15, 1948. The war was launched against Israel by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq following Israel’s declaration of independence on May 14, 1948. The Agency began operations on 1 May 1950.
While all other refugees in the world are represented and assisted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the descendants of the Arabs displaced during the 1948 war are supported by the UN through UNRWA.