Several progressive lawmakers are urging President Joe Biden’s administration to restore funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which the administration halted after employees of the U.N. agency were accused of participating in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.
Earlier this month, Israeli government authorities presented UNRWA with allegations that as many as 12 of the U.N. agency’s employees participated in the Oct. 7 attacks. The U.S. State Department announced on Friday that they would temporarily pause U.S. funding to UNRWA, pending a review of the allegations against its employees and steps the United Nations will take to address these concerns.
In the days since the State Department announced its pause of support for UNRWA, some progressive lawmakers have expressed dismay and urged the Biden administration to reverse course and reinstate the funding for the U.Nn agency, which was established for the express purpose of providing humanitarian services to Palestinians displaced during the founding of the Israeli state in 1948.
“Obviously, it’s not acceptable for any of the 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza to be involved with Hamas, and allegations against the 12 people charged must be investigated,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said on Tuesday. “However, we cannot allow millions to suffer because of the actions of 12 people. The United States and other countries must restore funding to stave off this humanitarian catastrophe.”
Mr. Sanders argued that UNRWA remains a vital source of food, water, and humanitarian services for the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. He said around 1.1 million Palestinian civilians are at risk of starvation amid the Biden administration’s decision to halt UNRWA funding.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) also raised the UNRWA as the primary source of humanitarian assistance for 2.2 million Gazans and, in a post on the X social media platform on Monday, said the decision to freeze support for the U.N. agency “is unacceptable.”
“Among an organization of 13,000 U.N. aid workers, risking the starvation of millions over grave allegations of 12 is indefensible,” she continued. “The United States should restore aid immediately.”
In a statement she shared with Politico, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) cast doubt on the veracity of the Israeli claims against the UNRWA.
“To take concerning allegations as fact without any investigation, especially in light of the Israeli government’s well-documented history of using torture and obtaining forced confessions, as a means to suspend life-saving aid demonstrates the emptiness of the Biden administration’s claims to care about Palestinian lives,” said Ms. Tlaib, who is the first Palestinian-American member of Congress.
Allegations ‘Highly Credible’
At a press conference on Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged UNRWA to investigate the allegations involving its employees immediately, review its procedures, and “hold people accountable as necessary.”
Mr. Blinken said the U.S. side has not “had the ability to investigate” the allegations but called them “highly, highly credible.”
On Friday, the U.S. State Department announced that it had reached out to the Israeli government for more details about the allegations against UNRWA employees and had briefed members of Congress on the matter.
NTD News reached out to the State Department for more details about the evidence the Israeli government has provided against the UNRWA employees and what information has been shared with members of Congress. In an emailed response, a department spokesperson did not provide specifics but said the department is actively reviewing the evidence it has received from the Israeli government and is discussing these details with Congress on an ongoing basis.
At a Monday press briefing, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the U.S. government had provided about $121 million to UNRWA so far this fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1. Mr. Miller said the current pause impacts about $300,000 in funding that had been allocated for UNRWA but had yet to be transferred to the U.N. agency.
“We very much support the work that UNRWA does. We think it’s critical. There is no other humanitarian player in Gaza who can provide food and water and medicine at the scale that UNRWA does,” Mr. Miller said. “We want to see that work continued, which is why it is so important that the United Nations take this matter seriously, that they investigate it, that there is accountability for anyone who is found to have engaged in wrongdoing, and that they take whatever other measures are appropriate to ensure that this sort of thing cannot happen again.”