In a poignant ceremony that lit up more than just candles, a memorial service honoring United Nations staff who lost their lives in 2025 unexpectedly stirred controversy. The event, which aimed to pay tribute to these dedicated employees, inadvertently included a name that later raised eyebrows—a U.N. employee posthumously identified as a Hamas commander.
Held in June, the annual service commemorated 136 U.N. workers who passed away while on duty that year. During the gathering, Secretary-General António Guterres, General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock, and the Security Council President at the time, Leonor Zalabata Torres, united to light a symbolic “eternal flame.” As somber violin notes filled the air, one name read aloud was Imad Youssif El Samhouri, causing unforeseen ripple effects.
El Samhouri had served as a teacher and later the principal of the UNRWA Rafah Preparatory Boys School B under the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. This accolade turned controversial when, on August 8, he was revealed via the messaging platform Telegram by Hamas to have been a field commander in their Al-Qassam Brigades.
Imad Youssif El Samhouri was not only an employee of UNRWA, but also, as declared by Hamas on Telegram, played a significant role as a field commander in the Al-Qassam Brigades. The dual identity of his endeavors has intensively spotlighted his mention at the solemn ceremony.
Amidst these developments, António Guterres emphasized the heavy toll taken on U.N. personnel, particularly in Gaza, stating, “More U.N. colleagues have been killed in Gaza than in any other conflict or disaster in the history of the United Nations. Some died alongside their families, in places they thought safe; others perished while fulfilling their duties.” Guterres called for a global remembrance of these tragedies, stressing unequivocally, “U.N. personnel must never be targeted.”
Guterres also said, “In keeping with long-standing practice, we have sought the consent of families to read aloud the names of those we honor. Tragically, in the case of men who served with UNRWA, we could not reach those families because they, too, have been killed or forced to flee.”
Secretary-General António Guterres and President of the General Assembly Annalena Baerbock pay tribute to 136 United Nations personnel who lost their lives in the line of duty in 2025, in New York, June 8, 2026. (UNTV)
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, has written an open letter to Guterres and Baerbock asking both to issue an apology for the incident and acknowledge that UNRWA is “unwilling or unable” to roust terrorists from its schools.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for Guterres, told News Media during a press briefing last week, “[UNRWA] and we are always very deeply concerned when allegations against the former staff is raised. Obviously, when his name was included, the agency was not aware. I will remind you that the list of all UNRWA staff is shared with the Israeli parties as they are every year. His name was shared in the list of 2024. No concerns were raised based on that information from the Israeli side, and obviously, had those allegations been raised before, his name would likely not have been included.”
When pressed further about whether Guterres would retract the honors or issue an apology, Dujarric seemed to put the blame on Israel, “We’re now stating our position, which makes it clear. Had we known, and had we been told, his name would probably not have been included.”
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon told News Media, “It is outrageous to watch the U.N. spokesperson struggle to clearly condemn the crimes committed by former UNRWA employees. Israel repeatedly warned the U.N. that active Hamas terrorists were operating within UNRWA and played a significant role in the atrocities of Oct. 7. The U.N. spokesperson’s response reflects Secretary-General Guterres’ entire tenure: the organization has lost its moral compass. It is because of terrorists like Imad Youssif El Samhouri and others that Israel ended UNRWA’s operations in Israel.”
Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, speaks during The Jerusalem Post’s annual conference in New York. (Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
Neuer has accumulated multiple social media posts that he says are attributed to El Samhouri, which demonstrate his support of so-called Palestinian martyrs, his praise for the kidnapping of Israeli teens, and his support for the “good news” of Hamas attacks between 2012 and 2014.
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El Samhouri’s case is one of about 200 cases that senior fellow at UN Watch Salo Aizenberg told News Media he has cataloged in which terror groups shared posthumous proof that journalists, NGO personnel, aid workers, lawyers and medical personnel were part of their organizations. Citing the Institute for Palestine Studies, which says El Samhouri was killed June 8, 2025, when Israeli forces targeted his tent with no warning, Aizenberg noted on X that El Samhouri was “using the cover of the humanitarian zone as a human shield” when he was targeted.
In a martyr video viewed by News Media that the Israel Defense Forces provided, El Samhouri stands before multiple grenades and a weapon and states that “the call to arms has resounded in the hearts of the faithful and they have answered the call.” He also says that “we have chosen jihad as our path; our anthem is that Death in the cause of Allah is our highest aspiration, and our resolve will not waver, no matter how long the road or how great the sacrifices.”
In the same video, while standing within what appears to be an underground tunnel, El Samhouri thanks God, “who has honored us with the tunnels and made them a means of resistance, a means by which the Zionist enemy never imagines we will emerge from beneath the ground.”
Neuer told News Media, “Samhouri publicly glorified terrorism, circulated Hamas battlefield propaganda and brought Hamas officials into UNRWA school life. Photographs show his own principal, Muhammad Al-Bardawil, repeatedly appearing at school events with Jumaa Al-Ghoul, Hamas’ representative in Rafah.” He said, “The evidence shows clearly that many officials in the UNRWA school system knew about Samhouri’s support for terrorism and ties to Hamas, and that they actually tolerated or even encouraged it.”
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United Nations vehicles ride beside a truck in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 23, 2024. (Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images)
El Samhouri is far from the first UNRWA employee exposed for support of Hamas. Neuer added that “in UN Watch’s network map of more than 400 UNRWA employees, Hamas terrorists and their supporters have served as school principals, teachers and leaders of UNRWA’s powerful staff unions. Hamas influences UNRWA hiring and promotions, mobilizes strikes to protect extremists and intimidates international managers whenever even mild disciplinary action is attempted. Hamas pays some of its agents by getting them hired by UNRWA.”
According to Neuer, “The deeper problem is that the international leadership of UNRWA and of the U.N. rarely act. This is hardly a vetting oversight — it’s a system failure. UNRWA has demonstrated that it is either unwilling or unable to remove Hamas terrorists from its schools. UNRWA cannot be reformed; it must be dismantled if Gaza is ever to be deradicalized and given a real future for peace and success.”
UNRWA did not respond to News Media’s questions about El Samhouri’s social media activities, or whether his employment with the agency was further proof of its infiltration by Hamas.
The USAID Office of Inspector General is currently investigating 1,500 UNRWA employees for possible ties to Hamas. Thus far, the USAID OIG has referred 108 UNRWA staff to the State Department, requesting they be suspended or barred from further cooperation with organizations that receive U.S. funding.
A truck carrying aid is standing in front of the Rafah crossing, waiting to enter the Gaza Strip on Jan. 13, 2026, in Rafah, Egypt. (Ali Moustafa/Getty Images)
A senior State Department official told News Media that “USAID OIG’s independent and ongoing investigation is revealing the pervasive extent to which UNRWA has aided and abetted Hamas. The investigation demonstrates that UNRWA hired droves of Hamas-linked terrorists and turned over their infrastructure to the terrorist group.”
The official stated, “This can never happen again, and other U.N. agencies would be wise to study the USAID OIG’s ongoing work to understand how to avoid a repeat.”