Connect with us

RSS

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.


The post US suspends UN relief agency funding over allegations that staffers took part in Oct. 7 massacres appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

RSS

Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters

Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a lawsuit challenging as unconstitutional the Trump administration’s actions to deport international students and scholars who protest or express support for Palestinian rights.

The lawsuit, filed on Saturday in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York, seeks a nationwide temporary restraining order to block enforcement of two executive orders signed by US President Donald Trump in the first month of his term.

The lawsuit comes after the detention of a Columbia University student, Mahmoud Khalil, a 30-year-old permanent US resident of Palestinian descent, whose arrest sparked protests this month.

Justice Department lawyers have argued that the US government is seeking Khalil’s removal because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reasonable grounds to believe his activities or presence in the country could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Rubio on Friday said the United States will likely revoke visas of more students in the coming days.

Trump vowed to deport activists who took part in protests on US college campuses against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza following the October 2023 attack by the Palestinian terrorists.

The ADC lawsuit was filed on behalf of two graduate students and a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who say their activism and support of the Palestinian people “has put them at serious risk of political persecution.”

“This lawsuit is a necessary step to preserve our most fundamental constitutional protections. The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech and expression to all persons within the United States, without exception,” said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the ADC.

Chris Godshall-Bennett, the group’s legal director, said the litigation seeks immediate and long-term relief “to protect international students from any unconstitutional overreach that stifles free expression and deters them from fully engaging in academic and public discourse.”

The lawsuit centers on three Cornell University plaintiffs: a British-Gambian national and PhD student with a student visa; a US citizen PhD student working on plant science; and a US citizen novelist, poet, and professor in the Department of Literatures in English.

The post Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week

Israel’s Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar speaks at Reichman University in Herzliya on Sunday, September 11, 2022. Photo: Screenshot

i24 NewsPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency, that he will bring a vote before his government to dismiss him next week.

The post Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes

Newly recruited fighters who joined a Houthi military force intended to be sent to fight in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, march during a parade in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 2, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

i24 NewsThe Houthis claimed on Sunday that they targeted the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and other vessels in the northern Red Sea with 18 ballistic and cruise missiles and a drone. Military spokesperson Yahya Saree said that the US-led attacks against the Houthis on Saturday comprised of more than 47 airstrikes on seven governorates, with the death toll expected to rise.

“The Yemeni Armed Forces will not hesitate to target all American warships in the Red Sea and in the Arabian Sea in retaliation to the aggression against our country,” Saree said, vowing the Houthis “will continue to impose a naval blockade on the Israeli enemy and ban its ships in the declared zone of ​​operations until aid and basic needs are delivered to the Gaza Strip.”

The post Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News