B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:

B’nai B’rith International is outraged by reports that the approximately 20 rockets found last week in a Gaza school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) were returned by the U.N. agency to local authorities, when control of Gaza continues to be dominated by Hamas terrorists.

The United Nations was provided a first-hand look at the heinous tactics that Palestinian terrorists employ—in this case using a U.N. facility for children as cover for operations targeting the people of Israel. Following the discovery, UNRWA condemned the storing of rockets at the school, saying this was a flagrant violation of international law and “endangered civilians including staff and put at risk UNRWA’s vital mission to assist and protect Palestine refugees in Gaza.”

UNRWA itself, however, seems to have dramatically violated the spirit of its own ostensible humanitarian mission when it apparently failed to prevent the rockets from being available again for use by Palestinian terrorists, thus endangering the same people it expressed concern with protecting, along with Israeli civilians. This is a scenario where hypocrisy on the part of the United Nations has gone beyond rhetoric into potentially dangerous actions.

B’nai B’rith calls on the United Nations to immediately ensure that weaponry is never allowed by a U.N. agency to be transferred to terrorists, and to swiftly release documentation of the Palestinian weapons cache to member states and the international public. If, in fact, UNRWA has taken any appropriate precautions to prevent the weapons’ acquisition by terrorists and use against Israel, it is incumbent upon the agency to substantiate such steps without further delay.