Dem lawmakers push bill to restore funding to UN agency with alleged ties to Hamas: 'So necessary'

A group of Democratic lawmakers is calling for the U.S. to restore funding to a controversial United Nations agency that supports much-needed humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees but faced accusations that some of its employees participated in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.

Speaking at a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday afternoon, Democratic Reps. André Carson of Indiana, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, among others, said passing H.R. 9649, or the UNRWA Funding Emergency Restoration Act, was crucial for helping Gazans.

Carson, who sponsored the bill, portrayed a dire situation in Gaza, calling current conditions "absolutely deplorable" and "inhumane." 

"One million. That's the number of estimated Gazans who will not have enough food this month. 700,000. That's the number of women and girls in Gaza who do not have access to menstrual products or even running water and toilet paper. 100,000. That is the number of Palestinians who have been seriously injured without access to functioning hospitals. 41,000. That's the number of Palestinians killed by Israel since Oct. 7th," Carson said. 

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Jayapal said the UNRWA has, for decades, "played an integral role in supporting the welfare of Palestinian refugees to ensure that they can live with dignity." 

"Unfortunately, UNWRA has been under constant attack by those who want to put a stop to this lifesaving work. The stoppage of funding was an unnecessary and dangerous interruption to continue to provide the humanitarian assistant that is so necessary," she said. 

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, has been one of the central agencies distributing aid to Palestinians in Gaza over the course of Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas. It has around 30,000 employees. 

In January, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres tasked the U.N.'s investigative arm, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, to investigate allegations by Israel that UNRWA staff took part in the Oct. 7 massacre.

Nearly 20 UNRWA staff members were investigated, but the U.N. only found enough evidence to dismiss nine people.  

Still, Israel’s allegations initially led top donor countries — most notably, the U.S. — to suspend funding for UNRWA, causing a cash crunch of $450 million. Since then, all donor countries — except for the U.S. — have resumed funding. 

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Schakowsky said it was "shameful" that the U.S. decided to cut funding to UNRWA because only a "tiny number" of the agency's roughly 30,000 employees were alleged to have been involved in terrorist activities. 

"Every other country, among those of our allies that had decided to stop funding UNRWA, have changed their mind. So now it is the United States alone," Schakowsky said. "And the fact that the United States has decided that it's not going to be there means a danger to the people who are dying, in danger of dying every single day, including children and women and families and everyone for basic needs that they have. And that is shameful. We cannot allow that."

H.R. 9649 has 65 co-sponsors and support from more than 100 human rights organizations. But not everyone is supportive of restoring funding. 

Anne Bayefsky, Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and President of Human Rights Voices, said lawmakers’ support of H.R. 9649 whitewashes the UNRWA’s alleged "connections to terrorism" and sends "the wrong message to Israel and America’s enemies at the wrong time." 

"Let’s get the facts straight: UNRWA employees directly participated in October 7 atrocities; 10% of UNRWA employees are reported to have ties to multiple Palestinian terror organizations; a significant percentage of UNRWA’s senior education leadership are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad," Bayefsky said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

Bayefsky also noted that "UNRWA facilities — including schools — have been used as Hamas command and control centers and weapons depots [and] UNRWA's Gaza headquarters powered a Hamas data center directly beneath it." 

Bayefsky slammed the UNRWA for not having taken, in her view, "serious steps towards accountability or prevention… while at the same time demanding more funding." 

"This is not a small drop in a fictional ocean of humanitarianism," Bayefsky said. "UNRWA’s ties to Palestinian terrorism emanate from raising a generation of Palestinian Arabs on the hatred of Jews in its schools, upending the meaning of a ‘refugee’ to serve as a vehicle to eviscerate the Jewish state. And spreading slanderous lies guaranteed to undermine peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis to the detriment of all."

Fox News Digital has reached out to the UNRWA for comment on H.R. 9649. The U.N., meanwhile, told Fox News Digital it does "not comment on legislations in countries. But we’ve been clear that UNRWA is the backbone of humanitarian support for Palestinian people and should be supported."