Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., has introduced legislation seeking to disband the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) following reports exposing links between agency staffers and the Hamas attacks on Israel last October.
The legislation would require the White House to coordinate efforts to transfer refugee responsibilities in the West Bank and Gaza to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and to withhold funding for countries refusing to support the policy, Mast said in a statement Tuesday about the bill, titled the UNRWA Elimination Act.
"UNRWA is a front, plain and simple," Mast said. "It masquerades as a relief organization while building the infrastructure to support Hamas. It is indoctrinating Palestinian children to hate all Jews and filling the future ranks of jihadists. It is literally funneling American tax dollars to terrorism."
He added that "we know with certainty that a significant part of the UNRWA workforce are members of Palestinian terrorist organizations, including participants in the Oct. 7 attack. No more. The United States must lead the effort to permanently disband UNRWA and end its nurturing of terrorism."
Mast, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability, said he will chair a joint hearing with the Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations to examine UNRWA and the accusations that have been made.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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