A group of Democratic lawmakers is calling for the United States to restore funding to a controversial United Nations agency that helps provide desperately needed humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees but whose staff members face accusations that they took part in the October 7 attack on Israel.
At a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday afternoon, Democratic lawmakers including Rep. Andre Carson of Indiana, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state and Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois said passing HR 9649, the UNRWA Funding Emergency Recovery Act, is crucial to helping people in the Gaza Strip.
Carson, who introduced the bill, described the dire situation in Gaza as “utterly deplorable” and “inhumane.”
“One million. An estimated 700,000 people in Gaza will not have enough food this month. 100,000 women and girls in Gaza who do not have running water or toilet paper, let alone sanitary products. 100,000 Palestinians seriously injured because they cannot access a functioning hospital. 41,000 Palestinians killed by Israel since October 7th,” Carson said.
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Rep. Andre Carson (D-Indiana) made the remarks at a press conference on February 29th. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Jayapal said that for decades UNRWA has “played a vital role in supporting the welfare of Palestine refugees, enabling them to live in dignity.”
“Unfortunately, UNWRA has come under constant attack from those seeking to stop this life-saving work. The suspension of funding was an unnecessary and dangerous interruption to the continuation of much-needed humanitarian assistance,” she said.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is one of the main agencies distributing aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, and employs some 30,000 people.
In January, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres instructed the UN's investigative body, the Internal Oversight Office, to look into Israeli allegations that UNRWA staff were involved in the October 7 massacre.
The Israeli government recently provided UNRWA with the names of its employees who are acting as terrorists within the agency. (Getty Images)
About 20 UNRWA staff members were investigated, but the UN found enough evidence to fire only nine.
Nevertheless, Israel's insistence initially led major donors, particularly the United States, to suspend funding to UNRWA, resulting in a funding shortfall of $450 million. All donors except the United States have since resumed funding.
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Schakowsky said it was “shameful” that the US had decided to cut funding to UNRWA because a “very small minority” of the agency's roughly 30,000 staff members were allegedly involved in terrorist activities.
“All of our allies who had decided to stop funding UNRWA have changed their minds, so now only the United States remains,” Schakowsky said. “The fact that the United States has decided not to fund UNRWA is a danger to children, women, families and all those who lose their lives every day trying to meet their basic needs. This is shameful. We cannot allow this to happen.”“
HR 9649 has 65 co-sponsors and the support of more than 100 human rights groups, but not everyone is in favor of restoring funding.
Ann Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and executive director of Human Rights Voice, said the lawmakers' support for HR 9649 covers up UNRWA's “connections to terrorism” and “sends the wrong message at the wrong time to enemies of Israel and America.”
“Let's get the facts straight: UNRWA staff were directly involved in the October 7 atrocities. 10 percent of UNRWA staff have reported ties to multiple Palestinian terrorist organizations. A significant percentage of UNRWA's senior educational leadership are members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” Bayevsky said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
Bayevsky also noted that “UNRWA facilities, including schools, have been used as command and control centers and weapons depots by Hamas.” [and] UNRWA's Gaza headquarters powered a Hamas data center located directly underneath it.”
Bayevsky accused UNRWA of “not taking serious steps towards accountability and prevention” while “at the same time demanding more funding.”
“This is not a tiny drop in the ocean of humanitarian fiction,” Bayevsky said. “UNRWA's ties to Palestinian terrorism stem from teaching Palestinian Arabs to hate Jews in schools, twisting the meaning of 'refugee' to eviscerate the Jewish state, and spreading slanderous lies that will undoubtedly undermine the peaceful coexistence of Palestinians and Israelis, to the detriment of everyone.”
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Fox News Digital has reached out to UNRWA for comment on HR 9649. The UN told Fox News Digital, “We do not comment on national laws, but we have been clear that UNRWA is a pillar of humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people and should be supported.”
