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The US Should Penalize UNRWA — Not Israel

Security personnel work at the UNRWA headquarters, in Jerusalem, May 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad

This week, Israel diminished a longstanding source of terrorist support – and the US should be glad.

On October 28, Israel’s legislature enacted two bills that effectively blocked the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from providing relief services to Palestinians in a zone that includes Gaza. The US opposed the measures.

In addition, by a letter on October 13, the Biden administration warned that if Israel did not immediately “surge” the pace and quantity of relief supplies to Gaza, the US might be legally compelled by Section 6201 of the US Foreign Assistance Act to curtail its sale of weapons to Israel.

In reality, Section 301(c) of the same law should compel President Biden to harden his policy against UNRWA, instead of opposing Israel’s action; no boycott of weapons to Israel is justified under Section 6201.

UNRWA was founded in 1949 to build tent cities with temporary emergency provisions such as food and water for Arab refugees after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Unfortunately, that quick-fix organization gradually swelled into a perpetual, billion-dollar-a-year welfare bureaucracy dedicated officially to helping Palestinians and unofficially to exterminating Israel.

UNRWA’s anti-Israeli animus became even more apparent during Hamas’ October 7, 2023 terrorist invasion of Israel.

After the Hamas murder spree, Israeli intelligence uncovered a web of UNRWA connections to terrorist organizations. According to Israel’s well-supported findings, over 25 Gaza-based UNRWA employees participated in the October 7th atrocities; another 30 facilitated those crimes with logistics and weapons procurement; and approximately 190 doubled as operatives of Hamas or Islamic Palestinian Jihad.

Moreover, a group of 3,000 UNRWA teachers celebrated the slaughter in postings to the Telegram messaging platform, and about 10 percent of UNRWA’s 12,000-strong Gaza workforce exhibited ties to terror groups. In addition, Hamas built a data center under UNRWA’s Gaza headquarters and stored munitions in UNRWA schools, maneuvers that followed Hamas’ longstanding practice of turning civilians into human shields.

UNRWA has historically fostered Islamist extremism. UNRWA teachers radicalize students to wage holy war against Jews and martyr themselves to “liberate” Israel. The educators also falsely instruct that an imagined six million Palestinian “refugees” have a “right of return” through “armed resistance” to Israel, where they will convert the world’s only Jewish-majority state into the 58th Muslim-majority state.

In order to prevent the eviction of UNRWA from worsening the dire condition of some two million Gazans, the Israeli government has called for UN support services in Gaza, eastern Jerusalem, and the West Bank to be transferred to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the relief provider that serves people who legally qualify as refugees. The proposed transfer must be swift and smooth, so no aid recipients fall through the cracks. Until the UNHCR takes charge, other NGOs in Gaza should — and must — fill the gap.

The Knesset action complements President Biden’s own legal response to UNRWA’s malfeasance. In March 2024, he suspended America’s $300 million annual funding to UNRWA because the entity had violated the above-referenced Section 301(c). That law required UNRWA to take “all possible measures” to prevent its US donations from reaching anyone engaged in terrorism. Yet UNRWA did the opposite. It employed and harbored terrorists. Such inbred criminality should persuade the president to reenforce Section 301(c) by blessing UNRWA’s demise.

The above-noted Section 6201, which requires the US to halt military sales where countries restrict the flow of humanitarian products to needy populations, should not be enforced against Israel for two reasons. First, Israel has obeyed the US demand to surge humanitarian aid into Gaza, even though Hamas attacks the Israeli aid facilitators and steals an estimated 50% of the needed goods. Second, 6201 authorizes the president to continue the given military transfers if necessary for national security reasons. In this case, the reasons are abundant. Israel is a close US ally under withering, unprovoked terrorist attack on seven fronts. Some of the terrorist factions hold hostages from both Israel and the US.

Arming Israel actually furthers the humanitarian goal of Section 6201. Israeli troops must defeat Hamas, so the militants will stop their criminal acts of stealing the life-saving cargo, exploiting Gazans as human shields, and holding hostages. Conversely, withholding military tools from Israel may prolong the human suffering.

Under the Hamas-UNRWA regime, human rights are crudely abused. Gazans should be treated like human beings, not human shields. And a UN agency should promote peace, not war.

Joel M. Margolis is the Legal Commentator, American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, U.S. Affiliate of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists. His 2001 book, The Israeli-Palestinian Legal War, analyzed the major legal issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previously he worked as a telecommunications lawyer in both the public and private sectors.

The post The US Should Penalize UNRWA — Not Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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