Hamas has vowed to stop the United Nations teaching children in Gaza about the Holocaust, saying it will poison their minds.

The history of the Holocaust is planned to be included as part of a human rights curriculum in schools run by the UN Relief and Works Agency, which is responsible for the welfare of Palestinian refugees. More than 200,000 children attend UNRWA schools in Gaza.

Hamas, the Islamist organisation that runs Gaza, has said it will do all it can to stop the teaching of Holocaust studies.

"We cannot agree to a programme that is intended to poison the minds of our children," said a statement from the ministry for refugee affairs.

"Holocaust studies in refugee camps is a contemptible plot and serves the Zionist entity with a goal of creating a reality and telling stories in order to justify acts of slaughter against the Palestinian people."

It said UNRWA should focus on the human rights of Palestinian refugees.

Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the agency, said: "We teach the universal declaration of human rights and UN resolutions as part of our human rights curriculum, which has been taught in UNRWA schools since 2002."

John Ging, the former director of UNRWA in Gaza who left to take up a new role this month, was a key proponent of including the Holocaust in the human rights curriculum, arguing that all the factors that led to the universal declaration at the end of the second world war must be covered.

Ging, a passionate advocate of the rights of Palestinian refugees and a vocal critic of Israel's policies towards Gaza, said Palestinian children needed to understand the great injustices of the 20th century, including the Holocaust, in order to fight legitimately for their own cause.

He was aware of Hamas objections to the plan, but told the Guardian last December: "There is a competition for influence here [in Gaza]. We have to rise to that challenge."

UNRWA has extensively consulted parents and civil society organisations in Gaza on the inclusion of the Holocaust in its human rights curriculum.

A project to take Gazan schoolchildren on trips abroad to learn about struggles for human rights has also come under fire from Hamas.

The Islamist organisation asked UNRWA to stop exposing Palestinian children to the Holocaust after a film about a trip to the US showed boys from Gaza at an exhibition on the Jewish genocide.