Israel Matzav

Israel says no to schools next to Hamas base

Israel has turned down a request by UNRWA to build UNRWA schools next to a Hamas military base.

But when the Defense Ministry received the UNRWA request for the new schools and checked their planned location, defense officials said they were alarmed to discover that the UN had planned to build the schools adjacent to a Hamas military installation.

“We were shocked to see that some of the schools sent for approval were right next to Hamas,” one official told the Post on Thursday.

The Defense Ministry contacted UNRWA and asked if it was aware that Hamas maintained a military installation nearby. The answer the Defense Ministry received was “yes,” according to Israeli officials, with UNRWA acknowledging that Hamas had allocated the land for the schools.

Chris Gunness, a spokesman for UNRWA, confirmed the details of the report but claimed that the Hamas installation in question was severely damaged by Israel during Operation Cast Lead and questioned whether it still served as a military facility.

IDF sources said that the building functioned as a Hamas base during Operation Cast Lead and continued to serve as a base today.

Gunness said that due to the Defense Ministry’s decision, UNRWA would not be able to build the schools, and therefore thousands of Palestinian children will be educated by Hamas instead of the UN.

“There is an acute shortage of UNRWA schools in that area, and as a result of the shortage more children beyond the 39,000 who are already not receiving a UN education will continue to receive local education instead,” Gunness said. “It is a great pity that we can’t have children in Gaza receive a UN education based on universal values.”

Defense sources said that Israel was committed to the UNRWA education system but that Israel would not allow Hamas to cynically use schools and children in its terrorist war against Israel.

“Israel attaches a lot of importance to the UNRWA education system in Gaza and will continue to cooperate and assist as much as possible in helping UNRWA,” one senior official said. “But we will not help Hamas use schools and turn the people of Gaza into human shields.”

Golda Meir famously quipped that there will be peace in our region when the 'Palestinians' love their own children more than they hate ours. Sadly, we're not even close to that yet.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:52 PM