The State Department played down the significance of its decision to cut off funding for the main UN aid agency in Gaza, explaining that it had already provided almost all of the money appropriated by Congress for that purpose and that the Biden administration hoped the matter would could be resolved quickly.
More than 99 percent of the U.S. dollars authorized by Congress for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, have been sent to the agency, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Tuesday.
The State Department froze the money “temporarily” on Friday after Israeli accusations that a dozen UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks, with some being held hostage in Gaza. At least 17 other donor countries have also suspended funding to the agency, according to UN Watch.
Human rights groups and progressive Democrats in Congress denounced the move, saying it would deprive innocent Palestinians of desperately needed aid. But Mr. Miller said the State Department had sent all but $300,000 of about $121 million budgeted for UNRWA to the agency, suggesting the short-term impact of US action in Gaza will be small.
US officials have suggested that the real question is how much more money Congress will be willing to approve for an agency that many Republicans condemn for what they call an anti-Israel bias and Hamas sympathies. Underscoring this uncertainty, witnesses at a House subcommittee hearing Tuesday denounced UNRWA and called for it to be restructured or replaced.
Israel’s government says at least 12 agency employees were involved in the October 7 Hamas attack and that UNRWA employs up to 1,300 Hamas members. Israel estimates that the attack left around 1,200 dead. another 240 people were taken hostage.
On Monday, Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken said the United States had not independently confirmed the allegations but found them “very credible.”
Before the Israeli allegations, the State Department had planned to schedule its next payment to UNRWA in early summer, although a long-running budget standoff in Congress leaves it unclear when a new State Department budget might be approved. And even then, the money must win the support of Republicans who were hostile to UNRWA even before its alleged links to the attack on Israel came to light.
Before any new money approved by Congress reaches UNRWA, the State Department must end its declared freeze on any funding for the agency. Mr Miller said that timetable “will depend on the investigation that UNRWA undertakes, what the United Nations undertakes and what steps they take”. He said Biden administration officials hoped that could happen “quickly” because “we are very supportive of the work that UNRWA is doing. We think it’s critical.”
His remarks came amid anger over the decision by donor countries to end their support for UNRWA. In a statement on Monday, Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary-general, said it was “shocking, indeed inhumane” that governments, including the United States, had cut off their funding. He noted that the dozens of employees, who have been dismissed, were among an UNRWA staff of 30,000. (At least 152 of the agency’s personnel have been killed in Israel’s military operation in Gaza, according to UNRWA.)
And several progressives condemned the Biden administration’s move, including Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, who said in a statement Tuesday that “we cannot allow millions to suffer because of the actions of 12 people. The US and other countries must restore funding to prevent this humanitarian disaster.”
While the amount withheld by the United States is a small fraction of UNRWA’s annual budget of about $1.2 billion, agency officials warn that freezing funding from many donor countries collectively could threaten the group’s humanitarian work. The United States has for most years been UNRWA’s largest single donor, but other donors collectively provide most of the agency’s annual budget.
In mid-October, President Biden also announced $100 million in emergency aid for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, which the White House said in a statement would be provided “through trusted partners, including UN agencies” and international non-governmental organizations.
In Washington, the UNRWA funding issue has taken on a partisan tone. Republicans have for years repeated Israeli allegations that UNRWA officials sympathized with Palestinian militants and allowed weapons to be stored at their facilities. (UNRWA has denied many such accusations over the years.)
President Trump cut off all US funding for UNRWA in 2018. Appearing on Fox News on Tuesday, Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations who is challenging Mr Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, took credit for persuading him . “I know UNRWA well,” he said, claiming that schools affiliated with the agency taught “terrorist hatred against Israelis.”
“For years, there has been widespread evidence that UNRWA is not a neutral arbiter and that its anti-Israel bias is widespread and systemic,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas said in a last statement. week. “Yet the Biden administration inexplicably resumed funding the agency in 2021.”
Mr Blinken became embroiled in the thorny issue shortly before the Hamas attacks. Last fall, Republicans temporarily blocked $75 million in food aid budgeted for UNRWA in Gaza. Amid warnings of mass starvation, Mr Blinken overruled the Republicans and released the money.
The State Department did not publicly announce the action, but a US branch of UNRWA did thanked Mr. Blinken on social media on October 3rd. Hamas fighters breached Gaza’s border fence with Israel four days later.
