After defending him, UNRWA forced to suspend employee elected to senior Hamas role

Two weeks ago, Hamas held elections in Gaza.

One of the people elected to a senior role was Dr .Suhail Hindi, who was head of UNRWA's Gaza teachers' union and has been known to be affiliated with Hamas for years. When UNRWA tried to fire him in 2011 after that little fact was publicized, the Gaza teachers all went on strike (he was the head of the union, remember) - and UNRWA caved, allowing Hindi to keep his job as a principal.

After being elected to a Hamas position this time, Hindu still wanted to keep his UNRWA principal's job. So, with an almost unbelievable amount of nerve, he vehemently denied that he was elected to anything, even though his name was published as one of the members of the winning slate.

When Israeli media, prompted by COGAT, started mentioning that Hindi was elected a Hamas leader while he was a UNRWA employee, Chris Gunness of UNRWA defended Hindi, saying he had no reason to disbelieve Hindi's denials - as if he forgot the 2011 incident altogether.

“Allegations have been circulating in conventional and social media networks about an UNRWA staff member being elected to political office in Gaza,” said UNRWA spokesperson Christopher Gunness in a press statement on Gaza neutrality issue.

“As soon as the allegations came to UNRWA's attention, the Agency undertook a preliminary investigation, including discussing the allegations with the staff member. Based on the due diligence carried out by the Agency to date, UNRWA has neither uncovered nor received evidence to contradict the staff member's denial that he was elected to political office,” the statement read.

UNRWA reported Sohail Al-Hindi as rejecting the news about his name appearing amongst the winning list of the Hamas political bureau in Gaza, saying: "I have no relation whatsoever with the issue".

But now UNRWA has changed its tune, after more evidence came in, but claiming that they were ready to suspend Hindi all the while before Israeli authorities said anything.

A United Nations agency said on Sunday it was suspending a Gaza staffer accused of being politically active in the terror group Hamas, which rules the coastal strip.

UNRWA, the UN agency in charge of Palestinian refugees, said the decision had already been taken ahead of an Israeli call earlier Sunday to fire Suhail al-Hindi, head of the agency’s staff union.

“Before that communication, and in light of our ongoing independent internal investigation, we had been presented with substantial information from a number of sources, which led us to take the decision this afternoon to suspend Suhail al Hindi, pending the outcome of our investigation,” UNRWA spokeswoman Chris Gunness wrote.

Given the history of UNRWA with al-Hindi, don't bet that this suspension will last any longer than his last one.

Gunness is being exposed as a liar yet again in front of our very eyes.

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