Skip to content Skip to footer

Israeli Government Is Buying Attack Ads Under Google Searches for “UNRWA”

Users searching for “UNRWA” or “UNRWA USA” have been served a link to Israel’s government website vilifying the agency.

Officials of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) play with the children who were adversely affected by Israeli attacks near a school for Palestinian refugees in Khan Yunis, Gaza, on July 4, 2024.

The Israeli government has funded multiple ad campaigns to attack and delegitimize Gaza’s main humanitarian aid agency under Google searches for the agency, new reporting finds — the latest instance of how the Israeli government spreads its propaganda online within the U.S.

According to an investigation by Wired, since January at least, Israel has bought ads attacking the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), as part of its longtime campaign to dismantle the agency. The sponsored link has had headlines like “UNRWA Neutrality Compromised” or “Israel Unveils UNRWA Issues.”

The ad campaign is paid for by the Israeli government, and the ad links to a page on Israel’s official government website. At least a portion of the ad campaign appears to be directly targeted toward a U.S. audience.

Google searches for “UNRWA” and “UNRWA USA” at the time of this article’s writing pulled up a sponsored link to a page on Israel’s government website that repeated many of the baseless claims regarding UNRWA that Israeli officials have spread in recent months, like unproven claims about the agency’s supposed ties to Hamas soldiers.

Though many countries, including the U.S., suspended funding to UNRWA due to those claims, the accusations have never been backed up by investigations independent of Israel’s influence. Israel has a vested interest in dismantling UNRWA because a suspension of the agency’s lifesaving services in Gaza would help accelerate Israel’s genocide and colonization of Palestine.

According to Wired, across 300 search terms related to UNRWA, Israel’s attack ad came up 44 percent of the time between May and July.

Israel has also aired videos against the agency via Google’s ad services saying that “UNRWA is inseparable from Hamas.”

Google has said that they don’t believe that the sponsored links violate company policy. Wired notes that the search ads aren’t findable through the company’s Ads Transparency Center.

“There is an incredibly powerful campaign to dismantle UNRWA,” UNRWA USA Executive Director Mara Kronenfeld, who first discovered the ads herself while googling her agency in January, told Wired. “I want the public to know what’s happening and the insidious nature of it, especially at a time when civilian lives are under attack in Gaza.”

Google searches for UNRWA have spiked since Israel began its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in October, meaning that many looking up the agency may have seen these ads. The ads may be influencing public opinion at a time when politicians in the U.S., which was formerly UNRWA’s single largest donor, have sought to indefinitely defund the agency — even as other countries have resumed funding. This spring, Congress passed a bill that would suspend U.S. funding of the agency through March 2025.

Google employees have waged several campaigns to pressure Google into dropping its ties with Israel, railing against several Google projects that directly or indirectly aid Israel’s military. Of particular note has been employees’ opposition to Google’s participation in Project Nimbus, which provides cloud computing services, artificial intelligence, and other technological support to Israel. Google has, in response, fired workers who have protested against the company’s ties to Israel.

The report is one of several that have detailed how Israel seeks to influence U.S. policy and public opinion with no intervention from the U.S. government despite previous media and political frenzy over foreign interference in U.S. politics.

In June, Haaretz and The New York Times revealed that the Israeli government has spent at least $2 million on a campaign to create thousands of fake social media accounts across X, Facebook and Instagram in order to flood American politicians’ replies with pro-Israel stances. Some of these posts also vilified UNRWA.

Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One

Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.

Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.

Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.

As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.

And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.

In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.

We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.

We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $150,000 in one-time donations and to add 1,500 new monthly donors by midnight on December 31.

Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.

If you have the means to make a substantial gift, please dig deep during this critical time!

With gratitude and resolve,

Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy