The Hamas leader killed in Lebanon was a UN employee, the agency confirms

A UN human rights group confirmed that the Hamas leader in Lebanon who was recently killed in Israeli strikes was its employee.

Fateh Sherif was killed along with his wife and children in an airstrike on the al-Bass refugee camp in the southern Lebanese city of Tire on Monday.

The United Nations Disaster Relief Agency (UNRWA) noted that Sherif had been suspended from the organization since March but not fired.

“Fateh Al Sharif was a UNRWA employee who was placed on unpaid administrative leave in March and who was under investigation after UNRWA received allegations about his political activities,” a UNRWA spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

At the time, his suspension sparked widespread protests and strikes by teachers in Lebanon.

“Sherif was responsible for coordinating Hamas' terrorist activities in Lebanon with Hezbollah operatives. “He was also responsible for Hamas’s efforts in Lebanon to recruit militants and obtain weapons,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel Security Service (ISA) said. a joint statement.

“He led the Hamas terrorist organization’s troop buildup in Lebanon and worked to advance Hamas’ interests in Lebanon both politically and militarily.”

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Israel claims UNRWA is overrun with terrorist sympathizers, a claim the agency denies.

Sherif was principal of the UNRWA-run Deir Yassin Secondary School in al-Bass and chairman of the UNRWA teachers' union, which includes around 2,000 teachers.

“Through this position and as director of a major UNRWA school, he was able to recruit activists and brainwash generations of Palestinians to engage in terrorism,” Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, told Fox News Digital.

Neuer and his organization had long urged UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini to fire Sherif, saying they had presented both with a dossier showing his involvement with Hamas.

“Everyone at UNRWA knew it. Yet they refused to act,” said Neuer.

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Women pass damaged vehicles after an Israeli airstrike hit a building in Beirut early Monday. (AP/Hussein Malla)

“Even as Principal al-Sharif openly incited terrorism on social media for over a decade, UNRWA took no action. She failed to fire or even convict her principal because he was a Hamas terror leader. Only this year, when this came under intense scrutiny UNRWA, did they finally give him a slap on the wrist – while insisting for months that they were “conducting an investigation?”

The killing of a sherif came as another terrorist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said three of its leaders were killed in an airstrike that hit the upper floor of an apartment building in Beirut, according to Reuters.

Israeli officials said Monday they would “continue to take action against anyone who poses a threat to the civilian population of the State of Israel.”

Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes on the village of Taybeh, seen from the southern city of Marjayoun in Lebanon, on Monday, September 23. (AP/Hussein Malla)

Israel has expanded its attacks on Iran-backed militant groups in the region in recent days, also killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike over the weekend.

While this is a full-scale ground offensive, the IDF has launched small special forces operations in southern Lebanon.

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An Israeli airstrike reportedly hit central Beirut, the first attack in the heart of the capital since 2006, leading to an escalation in the bombing that local officials said killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon.

Iran has vowed that Israel's “criminal acts” would not go unanswered, while President Biden insisted an all-out war in the Middle East must be “avoided.”