UNRWA Teachers Held Israeli Boy, Elderly Woman Hostage for Hamas

At least two teachers for the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza separately held captive Israeli civilians abducted on Oct. 7.
Nearly half of UNRWA’s some 12,000 employees in Gaza either work for Hamas or its affiliate Islamic Jihad or have close relatives who do, Israeli officials said. At least 13 UNRWA workers, including seven teachers, allegedly participated in Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack in southern Israel, which started the Gaza war, and four employees allegedly helped take hostages. A government spokeswoman could not immediately confirm if the UNRWA teachers who held the boy and the woman were among the seven identified by Israel.