U.N. Agency for Palestinians Asks Israeli Journalist to Remove Post about Its Alleged Link to a Hostage-Taker

The U.N.’s controversial agency for Palestinian refugees is making a remarkable, if not unprecedented, attempt to censor an Israeli journalist.

On Thursday, Almog Boker with Israel’s Channel 13 posted a remarkable report to social media: “One of the abductees, held for nearly 50 days in an attic, reveals he was held by a UNRA teacher — a father of ten children.” (Boker was referring to UNRWA, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees that critics say has enabled Hamas terrorism and even hosted rocket-launch sites.) The hostage, he added, was locked up, malnourished, and not given proper medical care. Boker did not name the person who said this, but the information presumably comes from one of the hostages released during the recent cease-fire.

UNRWA took issue with the claim today and issued what might be an unprecedented demand: That Boker, a journalist, provide further information to the agency’s satisfaction or delete the post. It said in a statement that the U.N. has asked Boker “to provide more information on what we consider to be a very serious allegation.” “Despite repeated demands,” the agency said, “the journalist has not responded,” and it added that Boker should clarify his reporting.

“In the absence of credible information to support this claim, UNRWA requests that the journalist immediately deletes the post. Making serious allegations in the public domain, unsupported by any evidence or verifiable facts in support thereof may amount to misinformation.” It went on to condemn the “defamation attacks and the spread of misinformation about UNRWA.”

In the coming days, Boker’s reporting ought to be fleshed out and corroborated by other sources, ideally identifying the name of the hostage who said that he or she had been held by an UNRWA employee and providing further details. But, in the meantime, it’s important to note that Boker is a professional reporter with a reputable outlet, not an anonymous online troll. The demand that he retract his reporting is nothing short of authoritarian absent subsequent information that proves it to be false.

It also comes from an untrustworthy actor. In recent weeks, the agency has exhibited a strained relationship with the truth.

Take what happened last month, after the watchdog group UN Watch published a bombshell report that 20 members of UNRWA’s staff variously endorsed terrorism and, in many cases, the October 7 massacre. The findings were based on analyses of the social-media profiles of UNRWA employees in Gaza and elsewhere and followed a series of previous reports by the nonprofit group that had unearthed the pro-terrorism sentiments expressed by more than 100 UNRWA employees. “Even when UNRWA has taken disciplinary action, its approach has been inconsistent, equivocal, and non-transparent, sending the counterproductive message that employee violations of UNRWA’s neutrality are, in practice, tolerated,” the UN Watch report stated.

In response, UNRWA accused UN Watch of lying, without providing any evidence to substantiate its accusations. Addressing an emergency summit of Arab leaders six days after UN Watch released its report, UNRWA’s commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini urged audience members to “firmly defend the agency against false and insidious claims that its schools teach hatred or that it has let the civilians in Gaza down.” He added, “These accusations come from those who want us to fail.”

There’s also the matter of UNRWA’s bizarre statement that accused Hamas of stealing fuel from one of its facilities in Gaza in October. It was deleted, and agency officials gave the press a strange explanation referring to “images circulating on social media” that had been misinterpreted. But what had sparked interest in the removal of fuel and other supplies from the UNRWA facility in question was the agency’s own statement, not any information that had originated online.

Representative Michael Waltz (R., Fla.) has written to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres asking that he investigate the allegations in Boker’s report. That’s a start. Ultimately, Waltz and other lawmakers can do their part by asking U.N. officials to testify at hearings on the recent UNRWA controversies, while reevaluating U.S. appropriations for the U.N.