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US suspends UN relief agency funding over allegations that staffers took part in Oct. 7 massacres
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Biden administration suspended funding for the main relief agency for Palestinians after UNRWA said it had fired staffers who allegedly took part in the Oct. 7 massacres in Israel, a major financial blow while the Israel-Hamas war still rages.
UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini in a statement on Friday confirmed that he had fired “several” staffers while the agency investigates evidence provided by Israel. It was not clear if he had fired all 12 named by Israel.
“The United States is extremely troubled by the allegations that twelve UNRWA employees may have been involved in the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel,” Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, said Friday in a statement. “The Department of State has temporarily paused additional funding for UNRWA while we review these allegations and the steps the United Nations is taking to address them.”
UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the principal funder of Palestinian refugees of Israel’s 1948 Independence War and their descendants. The United States is the single largest donor to UNRWA providing a third of its budget — $344 million of $1.17 billion in 2022 — and the suspension comes as the agency scrambles to assist Gaza Palestinians driven to starvation by the devastation of the Israel-Hamas war.
“Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution,” Lazzarini said. “These shocking allegations come as more than 2 million people in Gaza depend on lifesaving assistance that the Agency has been providing since the war began.”
Former President Donald Trump suspended funding to UNRWA at the behest of Nikki Haley, his ambassador to the United Nations at the time and now his rival for the Republican presidential nomination. President Joe Biden resumed the funding, in part to spur forward Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, which Trump had all but abandoned.
Right-wing pro-Israel groups as well as Republicans had long argued for defunding the agency, saying that its near uniqueness — granting refugee status not just to the first generation of refugees but to their descendants — perpetuated the conflict and a culture of dependence among Palestinians.
Israel’s relationship with the agency, even under the most hawkish of governments, was more ambivalent. Israeli officials believed the agency perpetuated the conflict, but also saw the relief the agency provided as a means of keeping the Gaza Strip, and parts of the West Bank, from exploding into chaos. UNRWA also provides relief to Palestinian refugees in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
The outbreak of war deteriorated relations between Israel and UNRWA. The agency, in sometimes strident tones, said Israel was targeting civilian targets, including its schools and its first responder stations. Israel said UNRWA was, willfully or under threat, providing cover for Hamas terrorists.
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, thanked the Biden administration for its action.
“These are ‘humanitarian workers’ with blood on their hands,” he said in a statement, of the 12 UNRWA staffers named by Israel. “Major changes need to take place so that international efforts, funds, and humanitarian initiatives don’t fuel Hamas terrorism and the murder of Israelis.”
Hamas terrorists murdered more than 1,200 people, brutalized thousands more and abducted more than 240 on Oct. 7. Since Israel launched counterstrikes, more than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed, including thousands of children. Israel says a third of the dead are combatants.
“UNRWA reiterates its condemnation in the strongest possible terms of the abhorrent attacks of 7 October and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all Israeli hostages and their safe return to their families,” UNRWA’s Lazzarini said in his statement.
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UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire
Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The U.N. Security Council met on Sunday to discuss US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.
It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote. The three countries circulated the draft text, said diplomats, and asked members to share their comments by Monday evening. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.
The US is likely to oppose the draft resolution, seen by Reuters, which also condemns attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and facilities. The text does not name the United States or Israel.
“The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday. “We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation.”
“We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear program,” Guterres said.
The world awaited Iran’s response on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US had “obliterated” Tehran’s key nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that while craters were visible at Iran’s enrichment site buried into a mountain at Fordow, “no one – including the IAEA – is in a position to assess the underground damage.”
Grossi said entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit at Iran’s sprawling Isfahan nuclear complex, while the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz has been struck again.
“Iran has informed the IAEA there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites,” said Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran requested the U.N. Security Council meeting, calling on the 15-member body “to address this blatant and unlawful act of aggression, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
Israel‘s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement on Sunday that the U.S. and Israel “do not deserve any condemnation, but rather an expression of appreciation and gratitude for making the world a safer place.”
Danon told reporters before the council meeting that it was still early when it came to assessing the impact of the U.S. strikes. When asked if Israel was pursuing regime change in Iran, Danon said: “That’s for the Iranian people to decide, not for us.”
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Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting
FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israel has rejected a European Union report saying it may be breaching human rights obligations in Gaza and the West Bank as a “moral and methodological failure,” according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.
The note, sent to EU officials ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, said the report by the bloc’s diplomatic service failed to consider Israel’s challenges and was based on inaccurate information.
“The Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel rejects the document … and finds it to be a complete moral and methodological failure,” the note said, adding that it should be dismissed entirely.
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Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’
FILE PHOTO: Pope Leo XIV holds a Jubilee audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport, at St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican June 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo
Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.
US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.
“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.
“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.
“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.
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