Records Seized by Israel Show Hamas Presence in U.N. Schools

To his college students, Ahmad al-Khatib was a deputy principal at an elementary faculty in Gaza run by the United Nations company for Palestinian refugees. To Hamas’s army wing, paperwork say, he was one thing else completely: an infantryman working out of the southern Gaza metropolis of Khan Younis.

The army wing, often known as the Qassam Brigades, stored meticulous data of its fighters, monitoring the weapons they had been issued and usually evaluating all the pieces from their health to their loyalty.

Mr. al-Khatib, an worker of the U.N. company since 2013, was amongst them: Secret inside Hamas paperwork shared with The New York Times by the Israeli authorities say that he held the rank of squad commander, was an skilled in floor fight and had been given a minimum of a dozen weapons, together with a Kalashnikov and hand grenades.

The refugee company, often known as UNRWA, operated faculties throughout Gaza earlier than they had been shuttered within the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault on Israel and the following conflict. The company, which employs roughly 13,000 individuals, together with 1000’s within the faculties, has an obligation to take care of the neutrality of its amenities within the battle zones by which it operates, together with by holding militants off its premises and payrolls.

But interviews and an evaluation of the data shared with The Times by the Israeli army and overseas ministry point out that Mr. al-Khatib was one in every of a minimum of 24 individuals employed by UNRWA — in 24 totally different faculties — who had been members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad, one other militant group. Before the conflict, the company was answerable for a complete of 288 faculties, housed in 200 totally different constructing compounds, in Gaza.

A majority had been prime directors on the faculties — principals or deputy principals — and the remainder had been faculty counselors and academics, the paperwork say. Almost the entire Hamas-linked educators, in keeping with the data, had been fighters within the Qassam Brigades.