Adedokun Waliyu 
“We have sabaya, I captured one!” Yousef al-Hawajara boasted to his friends on Oct. 7, 2023.
Sabaya is the term ISIS used for their captured women, the sex slaves they took from Yazidi settlements. In just-released recordings of some of the terrorists who took part in the Oct. 7 attacks, that word was being used to describe a young Israeli woman taken hostage.
It’s a troubling recording because al-Hawajara was a teacher at the UNRWA elementary school in Deir al-Balah school in Gaza. UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, is an organization that Canada has funded and is about to fund again.
In fact, International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen was scheduled to make the announcement on Wednesday morning that Canada was restoring funding to UNRWA. A media advisory had gone out to announce the event in Mississauga featuring Canada’s United Nations Ambassador Bob Rae and the story of the restored funding had been carefully leaked to CBC, which of course made no mention of this new evidence.
That news conference was abruptly cancelled late Tuesday.
Requests for comment to Hussen’s office on why the event was cancelled and when it might be rescheduled were not immediately answered.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces, released the call from al-Hawajara and others early Tuesday. In a recorded statement posted online, Hagari read out the names of several UNRWA teachers and other aid workers who are part of terror groups in Gaza, including Hamas.
“Over 450 UNRWA employees are military operatives in terror groups in Gaza,” Hagari said.
“This is no mere coincidence, this is systematic. There is no claiming ‘We did not know.’”
Yet, it seems the Trudeau government doesn’t want to know about the deep involvement of Hamas in UNRWA, it wants to look the other way.
When Israel released evidence in January that at least 12 UNRWA employees took an active part in the Oct. 7 terror attacks, the Trudeau government announced that they would pause funding for UNRWA. It was a false pause, though, because they had already given UNRWA tens of millions in aid money, despite the warnings of involvement and complicity in the terror attacks.
The next payment from Canadian taxpayers to UNRWA wasn’t due until April and now it appears that payment will go ahead. Meaning UNRWA didn’t suffer at all from Canada’s pause on sending aid money and we will reward a group rife with problems.
If this April payment of aid money goes forward, it will signal that the Trudeau government is fine with funding terrorism, as long as it is wrapped in the cool blue of the United Nations flag and logo.
There is clear evidence of UNRWA employees taking part in the killings, kidnappings and rapes that took place on Oct. 7. Still engaging with UNRWA at this point and worse yet funding them is unconscionable.
There are other ways to get aid and assistance into Gaza that don’t involve a United Nations group that has turned a blind eye to Hamas terrorism for years.
UNRWA ignored Hamas taking over parts of its hospital system, hiding weapons in places that were meant to heal the sick. UNRWA turned a blind eye to Hamas building a tunnel network using their school and hospital system, even taking electricity from a UNRWA building to power the server farm for their intelligence network.
At this point, as Rear Admiral Hagari said, we can’t claim we didn’t know.
According to CBC, the Trudeau government has seen an interim report by the UN examining itself and based on that report is willing to restore funding.
With this new information, any restoration of funding will be a stain on Canada’s reputation.
