Teachers protest at U.N. agency in Hamas-run Gaza
Thousands of Gaza teachers quit classes Wednesday to protest at a U.N. refugee agency’s suspension of a Palestinian staffer, raising tension between UNRWA and Gaza’s Islamist Hamas rulers.
Relations between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and Hamas have been uneasy ever since the Islamists took over the Gaza Strip after a brief civil war with forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement in 2007.
Hamas has repeatedly criticized UNRWA for ignoring its authority and for facilitating visits to Gaza by international officials from which Hamas leaders regularly have been excluded…
Hamas lawmakers often criticize UNRWA’s education policies and some accuse it of trying to teach material that encourages normalization with Israel or educate pupils about the Holocaust..