Neta Heiman Mina, daughter of former Hamas hostage Ditza Heiman, addressed the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday and spoke about the 53 days her mother was held captive in the Gaza Strip. Heiman Mina, an activist with the Women Wage Peace movement, criticized the continued funding and support of UNRWA after her mother was held in Gaza by a teacher employed by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, telling the UN: “How could you place the education of Gaza’s next generation with someone involved in holding an elderly woman hostage?"
Ditza Heiman was 84 when she was abducted from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023. She was held hostage in Gaza for 53 days before being released in the November hostage deal that year. According to her testimony, she spent 48 days confined in the attic of the home of a UNRWA teacher, under harsh conditions and with very little food.
Neta Heiman Mina addresses the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva
Heiman Mina delivered a roughly 90-second statement during a panel discussion on human rights education for children and young people, held to mark the anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training. She spoke jointly on behalf of UN Watch and Ingénieurs du Monde.
“For 48 days, an UNRWA teacher kept her trapped in his attic — in terrible conditions, with very little food,” she said. “I ask the United Nations: How could you place the education of Gaza’s next generation with someone involved in holding an elderly woman hostage?”
Heiman Mina also questioned how the UN could promote human rights education while, in her words, continuing to fund and defend an agency whose employees have been accused of ties to terrorist organizations. She also mentioned Suhail al-Hindi, a former head of UNRWA’s staff union in Gaza who, according to UN Watch, identified himself as a Hamas member, and asked how such a person was allowed to oversee thousands of teachers in the Strip.
In her remarks, Heiman Mina raised broader questions about oversight of UNRWA employees and the agency’s role in educating Gaza’s children. At the same time, she made clear that she was not calling for an end to essential services for Gaza residents, but rather for alternatives that, in her view, are not tainted by support for terrorism.
“I believe the vacuum must be filled. The United Nations and the Peace Council must find alternatives to provide Gaza’s children with health care, education and food security,” she said.
Report against UNRWA: ‘It graded its own homework’
Heiman-Mina’s speech came as UN Watch released a new report casting doubt on UNRWA’s claims regarding the scope of reforms it carried out following the crisis that engulfed the agency after October 7. After the involvement of UNRWA employees in the Hamas attack was exposed, and donor countries suspended a total of about $450 million in funding, UN Secretary-General António Guterres commissioned an independent review of the agency’s neutrality mechanisms.
The review was led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna. Its purpose was to examine whether UNRWA’s neutrality safeguards were indeed “fit for purpose” and to help restore donor countries’ confidence in the agency. Following the work of the Independent Review Group headed by Colonna, 50 reform recommendations were formulated. UNRWA later said it had completed 41 of them.
Neta Heiman Mina in front of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva
But a new UN Watch report titled “Report Card on UNRWA Reform” argues that this claim significantly overstates the changes actually implemented. According to the organization’s analysis, UNRWA frequently counted administrative and procedural actions as though they amounted to full implementation of substantive reforms. UN Watch argues that, in practice, at most 13 of the 50 recommendations can be considered fully completed as required.
The report further claims that a substantial portion of the reforms remained merely “cosmetic” and points, in its view, to continuing failures in internal oversight, organizational accountability and enforcement of the agency’s neutrality rules.
“UNRWA graded its own ‘homework’ and gave itself high marks,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. “On paper, UNRWA reports sweeping progress. In practice, its employees continue to be exposed as members and supporters of terrorist organizations, hate-filled educational content continues to exist and Hamas-controlled staff unions continue to undermine neutrality and organizational discipline.”
The report comes as UNRWA seeks to renew and consolidate international support and secure continued funding for its operations. Heiman Mina, meanwhile, sought in her UN remarks to emphasize that the need for education, health care and food security services for Gaza’s children is not in question, but argued that other bodies should be found to provide them without the suspicions and failures attributed to UNRWA.