Sexual Exploitation of Gazan Women by Palestinian Aid Workers, Including UNRWA Staff

It’s not the settler-colonial ethnic-cleansing genocidal Israelis who have been offering aid in exchange for sexual favors; it’s Palestinian men in Gaza, including those who work for UNRWA. More on this scandal, which will not receive the coverage it deserves in the mainstream media, can be found here.

Some Palestinian men have been exploiting the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, using resources as a way to pressure women into sexual interactions they would not have otherwise consented to, six local women told the Associated Press on Tuesday.

The women, who remained anonymous due to fears of retribution from the men or their own families, told AP that some of the men were associated with humanitarian aid groups, such as UNRWA.

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A 35-year-old widow reported giving her number to a worker while receiving aid from UNRWA, which resulted in her receiving late-night phone calls. While the conversation began as harmless, she described how it quickly devolved into him questioning her on the color of her underwear and whether her husband had satisfied her. He asked her to come to him for sex, which she refused, and she said she never received any humanitarian aid.

While the woman submitted a complaint to the UN agency, she stated that she was informed she needed to have a recording of the call to have it further investigated – a requirement that was not possible with her older phone model and contradicted the agency’s own policy.

UNRWA communications director Juliette Touma told AP that the UN agency has a zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment and doesn’t require proof, though wouldn’t say if staff were aware of the widower’s complaint.

The UN received 758 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse committed by staff in 2023, together with related personnel and partners, according to a March 2024 release. One hundred allegations were reported in peacekeeping and special political missions.
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“Israel’s siege on the Gaza Strip and the restrictions on humanitarian aid are what’s forcing women to resort to this,” said Amal Syam, director of the Women’s Affairs Center.

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Of course. Palestinian men in Gaza sexually exploit Palestinian women either, by promising or withholding aid, and some of those men are on the UNRWA staff, so Amal Syam blames Israel. Makes sense.

Israel and the United States have expanded efforts to see aid enter the Gaza Strip and bypass Hamas, as the terror group has repeatedly been accused of stealing resources as a means of wealth.

The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has received notable pushback from groups like the United Nations, though, despite authorities regularly pointing to the UN’s own inadequacy in delivering aid to the Gaza Strip.

The GHF has managed since it began operations in mid-May to provide 175 million meals to Gazans, all without Hamas being able to steal any of it, as it did so easily when UNRWA was in charge of humanitarian aid deliveries. Nor are there any reports of members of the GHF staff exploiting women the way UNRWA staff have repeatedly been charged with doing.

Many of the Palestinian women who have been subject to sexual exploitation by Palestinian men in Gaza, including staff members of UNRWA, are keeping quiet, because they want the focus to stay on Israel and its supposed misdeeds. So that exploitation continues, the malefactors can engage in sexual assaults, including rape, with impunity, and focus is kept on those terrible Israelis, who had nothing to do with that sexual exploitation of women in Gaza. Indeed, in the past, Israel has been accused of “racism” by the Palestinians because the Jewish soldiers never rape Arab women.

In the midst of this topsy-turvy moral atmosphere, it comes as no surprise at all that the senior religious adviser to Mahmoud Abbas, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, has clearly explained that what the civilized world sees as atrocities — the torture, rape, mutilation, and murder of 1,200 people — he sees, as do almost all Palestinians, as “legitimate resistance.” The only objectionable aspect of that Hamas attack on October 7 in his view is not moral, but practical — too many Palestinians were killed by the IDF in the aftermath. As long as Palestinian leaders continue to hold that perspective, they will continue to turn a blind eye to the sexual exploitation of Palestinian women by Palestinian men. It’s for the cause.