The Israel Defense Forces and the country’s domestic security agency Shin Bet announced that a military strike on Sunday targeted a Hamas command center located in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) compound in the Gaza Strip.

According to an IDF statement, "The strike was carefully planned and carried out using precise munition in order to minimize harm to uninvolved civilians."

The statement said, "The command and control center was used as a staging ground for multiple attacks on IDF troops located in Gaza's central corridor in recent weeks. Furthermore, the forward operations base was used to carry out attacks on humanitarian efforts, which aims to increase the distribution of humanitarian aid to Gazan civilians."

The IDF statement added, "Hamas oversaw the supply of weapons to dozens of Hamas terrorists from inside the command and control center, including those located and operating inside underground terror tunnels. Hamas intentionally positioned the command and control position within the vicinity of an active UNRWA location, jeopardizing the Gazan civilians taking refuge there. As a result of the strike, the Hamas’ command and control center located in the UNRWA complex is no longer operational."

When approached about the IDF strike on the UNRWA facility and the contention that the U.N.’s facility was a Hamas terrorist command center, a UNRWA spokesperson, Juliette Touma, told Fox News Digital, "On this particular incident we don’t have more information. For all violations of the inviolability of United Nations premises we call for investigations."

Get AfriPrime Android Web View app....Click the link to Amazon app store to download https://rb.gy/3xek46

The IDF and Shin Bet joint statement said, "The Hamas terrorist organization systematically exploits the civilian population and institutions as human shields for their terrorist activities against the State of Israel."

When asked if Hamas was endangering UNRWA employees and Palestinians by using UNRWA schools and other buildings to store weapons and lodge terrorists, Touma told Fox News Digital, "You see, we don’t know if the above claim is true."

David Bedein, an Israeli expert on UNRWA, told Fox News Digital that "the past seven months of combat, UNRWA facilities in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), in Jerusalem and in Gaza, have been shown to be filled with weapons, ammunition and missiles. What we have uncovered over a period of over 37 years is UNRWA is Hamas and Hamas is UNRWA."

Get AfriPrime Android Web View app....Click the link to Amazon app store to download https://rb.gy/3xek46

Bedein is the director of the Center for Near East Policy Research and has published numerous reports on UNRWA's curriculum that documented pro-terrorism and pro-antisemitic teaching.

Bedein added, "Since the IDF discovered so many weapons in 40 schools and hospitals over the last six months, how does UNRWA account for the massive amount of weapons found in UNRWA schools and medical facilities in Gaza and Jenin in the West Bank?"

When Fox News Digital sent Touma from UNRWA Bedein’s question, she wrote, "We call for accountability and investigations into ALL violations by ALL parties to the conflict into the breaches of international law and the lack of protection of U.N. premises and personnel in Gaza."

Over the weekend, Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner in charge of UNRWA, took to X to complain, "The Israeli Authorities continue to deny humanitarian access to the United Nations. Just this week, they have denied – for the second time – my entry to Gaza where I planned to be with our @UNRWA teams including those on the front lines. The past while recorded an increase in the denial of humanitarian access & attacks on humanitarian workers and convoys."

Fox News Digital sent a press query to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs about Lazzarini’s complaints. Touma, the UNRWA spokeswoman, said, "I’m not sure if the government of Israel responded" to Lazzarini’s X post.

In January, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz urged Lazzarini to resign over accusations that his agency’s workers participated in the Hamas-run massacre of nearly 1,200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Hamas murdered over 30 Americans during the invasion.

Katz said Israel would no longer be meeting with UNRWA. "I have just canceled the meetings of UNRWA head, Lazzarini, with officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Israel on Wednesday," Katz wrote, adding. "UNRWA employees participated in the massacre of October 7."

Israel is slated to launch an incursion into the last major bastion of Hamas control in the city of Rafah, where Hamas mastermind terrorist Yahya Sinwar has reportedly surrounded himself with hostages as human shields.

Lawmakers introduce legislation holding UNRWA accountable for joining, assisting Hamas terror attack in Israel

Members of Congress are looking to take action against a United Nations agency serving Palestinian refugees in Gaza, amid reports the international organization assisted the Hamas terror group.

Reps. Brian Mast, R-Fla., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., are introducing legislation that would demand the U.S. State Department does everything it can to return American tax dollars that went to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Get AfriPrime Android Web View app....Click the link to Amazon app store to download https://rb.gy/3xek46

"For way too long, UNRWA has masqueraded as a relief organization, while in reality serving as an incubator for Palestinian terrorists. Intelligence reports indicate that as many as 10% of UNRWA workers have direct links to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihadists," Mast said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

He added: "It’s ludicrous that our hard-earned American tax dollars were going to fund this crap. The State Department needs to do everything it can to recoup this money."

The legislation comes after allegations surfaced that at least a dozen UNRWA employees joined or otherwise assisted Hamas terrorists during their overnight attack on Israeli border communities on Oct. 7. The attack left more than 1,200 people dead, and Hamas took more than 200 hostages from a music festival and from their homes back into Gaza.

Get AfriPrime Android Web View app....Click the link to Amazon app store to download https://rb.gy/3xek46

After reports that some UNRWA members helped Hamas, the Biden administration announced on Jan. 26 that it would stop additional taxpayer dollars from going to the agency.

Just days before the freeze, however, the administration had already transferred $121 million to UNRWA.

Mast and Gottheimer’s bipartisan bill hopes to recoup that sum to the U.S.

The legislation is part of a continued effort from the U.S. — and other countries — to separate itself from the agency.

U.S. intelligence in February said it was likely some employees of UNRWA participated in the attack, but it also said it could not verify Israeli allegations of wider links between the agency and UNRWA, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In March, the Israeli government named 12 UNRWA employees who had ties to and assisted Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel in a dossier that it shared with several of its allies. Three were suspected of being involved in the kidnapping of the hostages or keeping them in their homes.

The agency fired the 12 employees named in the allegations, but the damage was already done and UNRWA lost hundreds of millions of dollars from donors after the dossier was sent.

The information includes allegations that approximately 1,200 employees shared some connection with Hamas — including around 17% of UNRWA teachers (out of a total 8,300) and around 20% of UNRWA school principals and deputy principals (out of a total 500) are members of Hamas. Ties to the group extend to UNRWA workers in positions related to relief and humanitarian aid, with about 10% of the 151 relief workers, and members of UNRWA’s health services.

The dossier also included excerpts from textbooks used in the agency’s school curriculum that allegedly include glorification of martyrdom and antisemitic tropes. Maps provided to children in their textbooks show a singular land where Israel and the Palestinian territories exist but labeled as a singular Palestine.

Get AfriPrime Android Web View app....Click the link to Amazon app store to download https://rb.gy/3xek46

After the report surfaced, Congress passed legislation to defund UNRWA until 2025.

Other governments similarly cut financial ties to UNRWA.

The report and subsequent response comes years after former President Trump took action against UNRWA when he was serving in the White House.