WASHINGTON, DC - The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) saw at least nine of its members participate in last October 7th’s Hamas terrorist attack against Israel. As a result, many countries, including the United States, suspended funding to the Hamas-supporting organization, Fox News Digital reports. Now, a group of (you guessed it) Democrats are calling on the U.S. to resume funding the organization.
At a Thursday afternoon press conference, Democrat House members Andre Carson (D-IN), Parmila Jayapal (D-WA), and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) pressed for Congress to pass HR-9649, the UNRWA Funding Emergency Restoration Act, claiming it is “crucial” for helping Gazans.
However, the Jewish News Syndicate reports that Hamas has raked in at least a half-billion dollars from humanitarian aid being sent to the Gaza Strip. That outlet reports Hamas steals humanitarian aid destined for Gaza and sells it to the very same people it is intended for. That money is then used to finance recruitment, noting Hamas has added 3,000 terrorists to its payroll in northern Gaza since the conflict started last year.
Meanwhile, Hamas-supporting Democrats are seeking to have US funding to UNRWA restored, with Carson calling the current conditions in the Gaza Strip “deplorable” and “inhumane.”
“One million. That’s the number of Gazans who will not have enough food this month. 700,000. That’s the number of women and girls in Gaza who do not have access to menstrual products or even running water and toilet paper. 100,000. That is the number of Palestinians who have been seriously injured without access to functioning hospitals. 41,000. That’s the number of Palestinians killed by Israel since Oct. 7th,” Carson claimed.
Those numbers are, of course taken from Hamas, so it is questionable as to their authenticity.
According to the far-left Jayapal, UNRWA has “played an integral role in supporting the welfare of Palestinian refugees to ensure that they can live with dignity,” she claimed.
“Unfortunately, UNRWA has been under attack by those who want to put a stop to this lifesaving work. The stoppage of funding was an unnecessary and dangerous interruption to continue to provide the humanitarian assistant [sic] that is so necessary,” she said.
UNRWA has around 30,000 employees and has been one of the lead agencies tasked with supporting aid to Palestinians in Gaza since Hamas attacked Israel, provoking an Israeli counter-offensive that has targeted the group in Gaza.
Fox News Digital said that in January, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres directed the investigative arm of the United Nations, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, to investigate the allegations lodged by Israel that UNRWA staff participated in the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel.
While 20 UNRWA staffers were investigated, only nine were dismissed. Israel’s allegations led to the United States and several other donor countries pulling funding from the group, resulting in a $450 million shortfall.
Schakowsky whined about the US pulling funding, claiming that it was “shameful” that the US pulled funding from the agency, citing only a “tiny number” of the agency’s employees participated in terrorist activities. One would think that any number would be too many.
“Every other country, among those of our allies that had decided to stop funding UNRWA, have changed their mind. So now it’s the United States alone,’ Schakowsky said. “And the fact that the United States has decided that it’s not going to be there means a danger to the people who are dying, in danger of dying every single day, including children and women and families and everyone for basic needs that they have. And that is shameful. We cannot allow that.”
The measure currently has 65 co-sponsors, including the usual progressive zealots and 100 human rights groups. However, some oppose restoring funding to the organization.
One is Anne Bayefsky, Director of the Touro Insitute on Human Rights and The Holocaust and president of Human Rights Voices. She said lawmakers support of HR-9649 disregards UNRWA’s “connections to terrorism” and sends “the wrong message to Israel and America’s enemies at the wrong time.”
“Let’s get the facts straight: UNRWA employees directly participated in October 7 atrocities; 10% of UNRWA employees are reported to have ties to multiple Palestinian terror organizations; a significant percentage of UNRWA’s senior education leadership are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” Bayefsky alleged in a statement to Fox News Digital.
She also said that “UNRWA facilities–including schools–have been used as Hamas command and control centers and weapons depots [and] UNRWA’s Gaza headquarters powered a Hamas data center directly beneath it.”
She also slammed UNRWA for not taking “serious steps toward accountability or prevention…while at the same time demanding more funding.”
“This is not a small drop in a fictional ocean of humanitarianism,” Bayefsky said. “UNRWA’s ties to Palestinian terrorism emanate from raising a generation of Palestinian Arabs on the hatred of Jews in its schools, upending the meaning of a ‘refugee’ to serve as a vehicle to eviscerate the Jewish state. And spreading slanderous lies guaranteed to undermine peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis to the detriment of all.”
While UNRWA has not responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment, the United Nations told the network it does “not comment on legislations in countries. But we’ve been clear that UNRWA is the backbone of humanitarian support for Palestinian people and should be supported.”
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