'We will cut out your tongue': Gazan teacher was threatened after questioning anti-Jewish education in UNWRA school

A Palestinian teacher revealed that she was threatened with violence after challenging colleagues for teaching children to hate Jews at a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

The 40-year-old, who had been teaching geography in Gaza for 15 years, told the New York Post that fellow teachers at the UNRWA school turned on her after she raised concerns. She said she witnessed staff praising Hamas and telling children that the Jewish people were to blame for all Palestinian suffering.

When she challenged her colleagues about promoting hate in the classroom, the conversation developed into an argument. As a result, a senior school official approached her wielding a pair of scissors.

“[The school official] told me, ‘We’ll make you wish for death, and if you don’t stop arguing, we will cut your tongue,’” she told The Post anonymously.

The whistleblower explained that she joined the UN agency believing its schools would protect children from Hamas influence but instead found the opposite.

“I was shocked to discover that the reality was very far from what I had imagined,” she said, adding that she was “appalled” by the ideas being told to the children.

She claimed pupils at the school were encouraged to support Hamas and continue fighting against Israel, recalling an incident in which a classroom of 11-year-old children were told Hamas was a movement fighting for justice.

In another case, a teacher encouraged young girls to support the terror group and then boasted to other colleagues about what she had done.

Concerned that the school environment was not maintaining appropriate boundaries between education and political and religious indoctrination, she challenged the teachers involved, which led to the escalation. However, she does not regret speaking out.

“I believe that remaining silent in the face of such practices means abandoning our moral and educational responsibilities,” she said, adding that Palestinian students deserved an environment where they could focus on their education and dream of a future without conflict.

Following the threats made against her, she decided to drop her complaints for fear for her safety and of retaliation against her family, saying that she did not know which members of staff might have connections to Hamas.

However, she has taken her concerns to the press, troubled that the children of Gaza are being subjected to extremist ideology while they are so young and vulnerable.

“The danger is more serious than ever now because the children are truly suffering,” she said. “As a teacher, it is my duty to convey an accurate picture and call upon the world to save our children from these ideas.”

“My most important message is that we need to care about who is teaching our kids,” she added.

The UNRWA school where she worked, located in Gaza City, has since closed due to the war and has been converted into a shelter for displaced Palestinians.

UNRWA has been under scrutiny, particularly since the Oct. 7 attack, and widespread corruption and compromise have been uncovered within the organization.

The UNRWA school curriculum has also been found to contain incitement, antisemitism, and the glorification of violence and martyrdom, according to the report “Textbooks and Terror.”

Another report released a year ago entitled “Schools in the Grip of Terror: How UNRWA Allowed Hamas Chiefs to Control its Education System,” exposed how UNRWA schools have been effectively taken over by Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon, with Hamas terror chiefs holding top positions. Moreover, UNRWA teachers have been exposed as complicit in holding Israeli hostages.

Despite regularly and openly expressing approval of terrorist activity and even having ties to the terror group, Hamas members and supporters were allowed to stay in their positions. “UNRWA knew – and did nothing,” UN Watch stated, saying the terror group had hijacked the agency’s education system, turning classrooms into “incubators of hate.”

Last year, UN Watch exposed how many among the 3,000 members in the UNRWA staff Telegram chat cheered on the Oct. 7 atrocities, leading to an independent review headed by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna. However, none of the recommendations have been implemented.

“The UN agency that raises more than $1 billion annually from Western states with the promise to educate Palestinian children with values such as peace, tolerance, and universal human rights, instead has handed them over to the very operatives who recruit child soldiers, glorify suicide bombers, and preach the annihilation of a UN member state,” the watchdog said.

Several countries have withdrawn funding for UNRWA, including the U.S., Sweden and Finland.

Now, the U.S. Israel Education Association (USIEA) is developing an education plan to provide an alternative to UNRWA with the stated goal of “Teaching to Coexist” instead of “Teaching to Hate."