The United Nations fired nine employees from its Palestinian refugee agency, the United Nations Relief Works Agency, on Friday after Israel accused them of involvement in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. The U.N. described the allegations as “extremely serious and horrific” and says it’s investigating the terminated staffers and will refer them for criminal prosecution if they’re found to have been involved.
The State Department’s position is that these allegations remain just that, allegations, and that an investigation is needed to sort out what happened. But the U.S. has reacted to the allegations by immediately suspending its funding to the UNRWA. At least 10 other countries have followed suit.
The Biden administration’ suspension is a drastic and morally indefensible step. The U.S. is one of the chief donors to the UNRWA, and the agency helps keeps hundreds of thousands of Palestinians alive by coordinating the distribution of humanitarian aid to the economically starved enclave. To cut off the entire agency, especially in concert with several other major donors, is effectively an act of collective punishment — carried out against a people who have been subjected to lethal collective punishment for months. And it could have swiftly devastating consequences: the U.N. says it won't be able to continue humanitarian operations beyond the end of February unless funding resumes.
Punishing the entire agency for a small number of people’s actions is neither logical nor conscionable.
Israel hasn’t accused the UNRWA of operating as a secret Hamas cell. Rather, Israeli intelligence agencies say they have evidence that at least 12 UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 attacks and shared that information with the UNRWA and the U.S. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement on Sunday that it immediately fired nine of those employees, one is confirmed dead, and that it is clarifying the identities of two of them. NBC News has obtained an Israeli security dossier that names the 12 staffers and additionally claims that around 190 UNWRA staff are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The dossier does not provide evidence for the allegations and NBC News has not been able to independently verify its claims.
The U.S. and the UNRWA have a relationship that goes back decades, and the agency has over 13,000 workers in the Gaza Strip who work across more than 300 installations. It is one of the largest employers in the enclave, and most of its employees are Palestinians. Even if more allegations were to emerge and it’s confirmed that the number of people with some connection to the Oct. 7 attacks is somewhat higher, that would still be a tiny fraction of its workforce in the Gaza Strip. That the UNRWA fired the named workers before investigating them signals that it is seriously concerned about the issue — and concerned about losing support for its humanitarian operation.
The stakes of an interruption in funding for the UNRWA are incredibly high. The agency provides health, educational and refugee camp infrastructure and social services to Palestinian refugees across the region. And since Israel’s response to Oct. 7 attacks, it has been pivotal in distributing food and medical aid in Gaza during Israel’s siege. This is a matter of life and death for hundreds of thousands of people, given that the siege has reduced the flow of food, water, electricity and other vital goods and services into the territory to the point that U.N. human rights experts say Gazans now make up about 80% of people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide.
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini expressed shock on the social media platform X on Saturday. “UNRWA lifesaving assistance is about to end following countries decisions to cut their funding to the Agency,” he wrote. “Our humanitarian operation, on which 2 million people depend as a lifeline in Gaza, is collapsing. I am shocked such decisions are taken based on alleged behavior of a few individuals and as the war continues, needs are deepening & famine looms. Palestinians in Gaza did not need this additional collective punishment. This stains all of us.”
The U.S. has hobbled the UNRWA in the past by severing aid. The Trump administration’s decision to cut off aid to UNRWA during Donald Trump's tenure, after calling it an “irredeemably flawed operation,” had long-term effects on the agency’s ability to distribute vital medical aid.
If the implicated UNRWA workers are found guilty of participating in attacks against civilians, then they must be held to account. But punishing the entire agency for a small number of people’s actions is neither logical nor conscionable. Just as we would not say that a hospital that employs a doctor who commits a crime should be defunded, similarly it defies common sense and moral duty to divest from a colossal life-saving humanitarian operation in response to allegations against a relatively small set of fringe employees.
The U.S. position also underscores the extraordinary double standard the U.S. has for Israelis versus Palestinians. Israel’s government — that is, not a small set of employees at an aid organization — is carrying out an ongoing regime of collective punishment in Gaza in violation of international law through its de facto targeting of civilians through indiscriminate bombardment and its creation of a humanitarian crisis. Yet the Biden administration not only continues to ply Israel with aid, but it also uses special expedited processes to send the country heavy weaponry.
If the standard for cutting off aid were a possible connection to war crimes, then the U.S. would have cut Israel off a long time ago. But that’s clearly not the case. The Biden administration is guided in this conflict not by consistent principle, but by strategic interest. And millions of Palestinians are paying the price.
