Al Itqan Educational School in Gaza, which receives funding from UNICEF, announced a drawing competition in late April that asked participants to depict the suffering of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The competition ran in May and a prize was awarded by the school administration.
In the weeks that followed the competition the school hosted Musbah Abd Rabbuh, director of the Waeed Association for Prisoners and Released Prisoners. The Waeed Association was designated by the Trump administration as a covert Hamas support network. Photographs posted on Al Itqan’s Facebook page show Rabbuh speaking inside a building marked with UNICEF signage, with children’s drawings displayed on the walls.
The United States announced a funding package that includes more than $218 million for UNICEF as part of a $1 billion humanitarian and disaster response allocation. A State Department spokesperson clarified that the $218 million earmarked for UNICEF is limited to life‑saving activities and does not fund education or school‑based programmes. The spokesperson also said the United States condemns any glorification of terrorism in schools under a UNICEF banner and called for a full investigation of UNICEF’s expenditures in Gaza.
Gerald M Steinberg, founder and president of NGO Monitor, expressed concern that UNICEF spending in Gaza could be used to fund radical programming at the school. He noted that open‑source evidence shows UNICEF has worked with individuals and NGOs linked to terror groups.
An Arabic‑language Facebook post, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute for the Washington Free Beacon, said the school would collect drawings about the prisoners’ issue and urged participants to depict the suffering of prisoners in Israeli prisons. Deleted posts from Al Itqan described the meeting with Rabbuh as a token of appreciation and praised the “Our Prisoners, We Will Not Forget You” campaign and the involvement of students and staff.
UNICEF did not answer a follow‑up inquiry from the Washington Free Beacon regarding its awareness of the school’s removal of Facebook content showing the Waeed Association official. The incident has prompted questions about the transparency and accountability of UNICEF’s funding and activities in Gaza.