Fact check: Is UNRWA mourning Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar with black ribbon?

Israel's military killed its top target in Gaza, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz confirmed late on Thursday. Sinwar is considered the mastermind of the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks on Israel in which Hamas and other militant organizations killed more than 1,200 people and abducted another 250 people into Gaza. 

Since Sinwar's death, there have been many posts on X claiming that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) changed its account's  profile picture and added the black ribbon to its logo as a sign of mourning for him. However, a look at the account and specifically at its profile picture over the past months with the help of web archiving tools shows that the black ribbon has been added long before that.

Claim: "UNRWA appears to be mourning the death of Yahya Sinwar. All UNRWA accounts added a black stripe to their profile," says this post on X. The claim can be found in several viral X posts calling for a defunding of the UN organization as it is allegedly mourning the death of the head of Hamas.

DW Fact check: False

The black ribbon alongside the UNRWA logo symbolizes solidarity with the victims of war and has been a part of the X account's profile picture since at least October 22, 2023, when UNRWA announced in a post on X that it was in shock and mourning after the killing of 29 of its colleagues in Gaza since October 7. On its official Facebook account, UNRWA changed its profile picture to the UNRWA logo and the black ribbon on October 11, 2023. 

We have looked at several UNRWA social media accounts on different social media platforms, but not all have the black ribbon on their profile images. On X, the EU account of UNRWA has the ribbon but the UNRWA USA, for example, does not.   

DW Fact check has reached out to UNRWA for a statement.

UNRWA target of disinformation campaigns

At the beginning of 2024, Israel claimed that some 450 UNRWA workers in Gaza were "terrorists." A review of the UN agency's neutrality was prompted due to these accusations. An independent panel says Israel provided no evidence to back the claim. However, the 54-page report identified "neutrality-related issues" in the implementation of the "robust" procedures UNRWA has in place to "ensure compliance with the humanitarian principles of neutrality."

Since then, the UN organization has been the target of claims on social media that it is supporting terrorists, and calls to end to its funding. 

Due to the variety and amount of claims, the UNRWA addressed the main allegations in a Claims versus Facts page published on its official website in May 2024.