The Biden administration has funneled more than $730 million to a United Nations organization for refugee aid in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that harbors staffers who have incited violence against Jews, The Post has learned.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has been accused in recent years of employing educators who “constantly call for the killing of Jews” and teach from textbooks “that glorify violence, promote martyrdom, insult Israel and incite antisemitism,” according to March. joint report by the non-governmental organization UN Watch and the Israeli non-profit Institute for Monitoring Peace and Culture in School Education.
The US cannot legally give money to the Palestinian Authority or the terrorist group Hamas, which last weekend carried out the worst civilian massacre in Israel’s 75-year history.
The State Department has nevertheless provided grants and other funding to organizations in the area, despite experts lamenting the lack of “guards” and internal documents stating the “high risk” that Hamas could benefit from the money drain.
The Biden administration has channeled more than $730 million to a United Nations organization for refugee aid in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that protects staff who have incited violence against Jews. Anadolu Agency via Getty Images The US cannot legally give money directly to the Palestinian Authority or the terrorist group Hamas but provides grants and other funding to organizations in the area.SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
The State Department, which has yet to halt any funding to the group in the Palestinian territories, did not respond to a request for comment. The US Office of Palestinian Affairs also did not respond to a request for comment.
The Trump administration ended funding to UNRWA in 2018, calling it an “irreparably flawed operation.” President Biden reversed that decision and the US is now the agency’s largest funder.
Enia Krivine, Senior Program Director of the Israel Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told The Post Tuesday that UNRWA contributes to terrorism against Israel and the US should immediately review its support.
The State Department, however, has provided grants and other funding to organizations in the area, despite internal documents saying it was “high risk” that Hamas could benefit from its aid.Getty Images
The Hamas terrorists who kidnapped and slaughtered Israelis on Saturday “are a generation of Gazans who have grown up in UNRWA camps,” Krivine said. “UNRWA was established to maintain the refugee problem.”
“The whole purpose of the refugee program is to reduce refugees and repatriate refugees and give them a life and a country,” he added. “UNRWA does the opposite. UNRWA also teaches anti-semitic, anti-Israel content in their schools. It is truly a scandal that the US and Europe have funded this curriculum through generations of Palestinians.
“UNRWA has been used as a staging ground for attacks. They have found terrorist tunnels under UNRWA buildings, registered Hamas members have been employed by UNRWA — it is rotten to the core.”
“They have found tunnels of terror under the UNRWA building, registered Hamas members have been employed by UNRWA — it is rotten to the core,” Enia Krivine, Senior Director of the Israel Program of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Post.AFP via Getty Images
The restored funding push under Biden comes despite a 2021 State Department report saying the agency has allowed Hamas terrorists to build tunnels under its schools and store weapons “in or near” other facilities, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
“UNRWA also has a cash aid program,” FDD senior adviser Rich Goldberg told The Post, noting that the UN does not categorize Hamas as a terrorist group, and has no “political litmus test” on international aid.
The funding is intended to act as a support system, especially for those living in the Gaza Strip, which is surrounded by Egypt and Israel. Stopping funding, critics argue, will lead to a humanitarian crisis.
The State Department announced in February that it had “provided more than $890 million for the Palestinian people” since April 2021, with more than $730 million provided to UNRWA.REUTERS
However, Goldberg argued, “allowing the terrorist organization Hamas to act like a government … and use its resources to commit terrorism, is one of the reasons we have ended up where we are today.”
The UN program was established in 1948 with the intention of assisting Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza following the establishment of Israel and subsequent Middle East wars. The program, which originally covered 700,000 refugees, has more than 5.6 million registered with it as of 2019.
The State Department announced in February that it had “provided more than $890 million for the Palestinian people” since April 2021, with more than $730 million going to UNRWA.
On October 7, Hamas terrorists launched a multi-front rocket attack and armed incursion into the Jewish state, killing more than 1,000 Israelis and injuring thousands more. AFP via Getty Images
The tranche was approved to “support the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people as well as the aspirations of the Palestinian people,” according to Ned Price, senior adviser to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
However, experts who spoke to The Post said the US placed several conditions on many of the organizations it supports in the region.
“Most of it is already out the door — there’s no fence on it at all,” Gabriel Noronha, a former special adviser on Iran under Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said of the latest funding.
Internal records show US officials expressed concern in 2021 about easing restrictions on funding to the Palestinian territories, citing “Hamas is at high risk of potentially benefiting indirectly, unintentionally from US aid to Gaza.” AFP via Getty Images
“It’s earmarked for a classic State Department-style project and everything can be used,” he added, before noting that the US could still freeze $6 billion in Iranian assets that were unfrozen last month.
On October 7, Hamas terrorists launched a multi-front rocket and armed invasion of the Jewish state, killing more than 1,000 Israelis and injuring thousands more. At least 14 Americans have also been identified as among the dead.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps coordinated with Hamas and green-lighted the attack, which brutalized Israeli children, women and grandparents in horrific acts of violence shared on social media.
The Free Beacon also obtained internal records showing US officials expressed concern in 2021 about easing restrictions on funding to the Palestinian territories, citing “Hamas is at high risk of potentially benefiting indirectly, unintendedly from US aid to Gaza.”
“There is a small but still risk that US aid will benefit other designated people [global terrorist] group,” said Andrew Weinschenk, director of the State Department’s Office of Financial Threat Measures, in a memo to the Treasury Department.
“Despite these risks, the State believes it is in the interest of our national security to provide assistance in the West Bank and Gaza in support of foreign policy objectives,” Weinchenk told Brad Smith, acting director of the Treasury’s Office of Assets Control.
The internal documents were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust, run by Michael Chamberlain, a former Trump Education Department communications official.
The US government has given more than $6.3 billion to Gaza and the West Bank since the signing of the first of two Oslo Accords in 1993 as part of its efforts to negotiate a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.
Asked about continued support for Gaza and the West Bank, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Post Tuesday: “If you fund terrorists, you get terrorism .”
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