AAP FACTCHECK – The killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by Israel has sparked social media claims that a UN aid agency is publicly mourning his loss.
A black stripe across the online logo of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees in the Near East (the UNRWA) has been taken as a sign of mourning for the militant leader.
But the claims are false. The UNRWA has confirmed the stripe has been on the logo since October 2023 – Sinwar was killed by Israeli forces on October 16, 2024.
The Israel Defense Forces announced in an X post on October 17 that Sinwar was suspected of being one of three militants killed in Gaza.
It was confirmed several hours later with an X post captioned, simply: “Eliminated: Yahya Sinwar.”
Israel believed Sinwar to be the architect of the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Within days of the killing, Facebook accounts carried claims that the UNRWA was grieving Sinwar’s death.
One Facebook post reads: “UNRWA appears to be mourning the death of Yahya Sinwar. All UNRWA accounts added a black stripe to their profile. Full blown terror enablers and supporters.”
It shares a graphic showing several UNRWA X accounts with the black stripe in the top left corner.
Similar graphics making the same claim can be seen in other Facebook posts.
But the black stripe is not a new addition, and has not been placed on the logo to mark Sinwar’s death.
The stripe is clearly visible in an archived X post from October 22, 2023, to mark the deaths of UNRWA staff.
Other archived posts, for example from November 2023 and April 2024, reveal it has been retained ever since.
When asked why and when the organisation had chosen to mark its social media logo with the black stripe, UNRWA director of communications Juliette Touma pointed AAP FactCheck to a post on her X account from October 19, 2024.
Her post reads: “On 22 October 2023, we reached a very sad milestone= 20 @UNRWA team members killed in #Gaza To pay a symbolic tribute, we added a black ribbon to our logo on social media. We’ve kept it since as the death toll continued. Today, 230 team members killed: friends & colleagues.”
The UNRWA has been the subject of various allegations since last year’s attack on Israel. There were calls for funding to the organisation to be cut following claims UNRWA staff were involved in the October 7 Hamas attack.
The UN later said nine staff members may have been involved and had been removed from the organisation.
In January 2024, Australia and New Zealand were among more than a dozen countries – including the UK, US, Germany, Switzerland and Japan – to pause their funding of the UNRWA until the claims had been investigated.
It was announced that Australia would lift its pause on funding in March, following “decisive actions from UNRWA and the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to strengthen the integrity of operations”.
In June, NZ also announced that it would be making its annual $1 million UNRWA payment as scheduled.
NZ’s Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters confirmed the payment in a post on X.
Claims that UNRWA added a black ribbon to its logo as a sign of mourning for the Hamas leader have also been debunked by Deutsche Welle and Full Fact.
The Verdict
False – The claim is inaccurate.
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