Bipartisan members of Congress are seeking a refund on U.S. aid that was given to a controversial United Nations agency this year.
Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., and Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., introduced legislation to push the U.S. State Department to recover any federal funds that have been distributed to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
The organization has come under scrutiny after reports of links between UNRWA staffers and the Hamas attacks on Israel in October.
Israeli intelligence estimated that 1,200 employees, about 10% of UNRWA's workforce, are either directly supporting Hamas and other terrorist organizations, or at least largely sympathetic. In March, Israel named 12 UNWRA employees who had ties to and assisted Hamas in the Oct. 7 attacks.
"For way too long, UNRWA has masqueraded as a relief organization, while in reality serving as an incubator for Palestinian terrorists," Mast said in a statement. "Intelligence reports indicate that as many as 10 percent of UNRWA workers have direct links to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihadists.
"It's ludicrous that our hard-earned American tax dollars were going to fund this crap. The State Department needs to do everything it can to recoup this money."
After the allegations surrounding UNRWA employees, the Biden administration announced in January it would stop any additional funding to the agency. Yet, just before the freeze, UNWRA had already received $121 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars. The bill by Mast and Gottheimer seeks to recoup that money.
In April, an independent review of the agency found some "neutrality-related issues" but said Israel had yet to provide evidence that staff were members of known terrorist organizations.
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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