Sanctioning UNRWA Is a Security Imperative

The Trump Administration is reportedly seriously considering imposing terrorism-related sanctions on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This would be a welcome move against a UN agency that has long given aid and comfort – if not more – to the Palestinian terrorist enterprise. Moreover, UNRWA’s unique status within the UN perpetuates toxic Palestinian refugee status and empowers Hamas.

Significantly, the UNRWA mandate is unlike that of the main UN refugee agency – the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – whose mandate is essentially to promote and facilitate the resettlement and integration of refugees generally into surrounding countries. UNRWA’s mandate on the other hand, exclusively extends to provide educational, social and medical support to the Palestinians and their descendants until their refugee status is resolved. Thus, the number of so-called refugees continues indefinitely along with ever-growing opportunities for exploitation by Hamas.

Of course, the carving out of a separate refugee agency after Israel’s 1948 War of Independence with its own mandate for the Palestinians was a distinct and negative political statement about the Jewish State of Israel. But there is more.

The Jewish Press has long reported on and condemned the evidence that UNRWA personnel were actively participating or complicit in the October 7, 2023 atrocities. We have also often editorialized that UNRWA facilities (schools, clinics) have been used to store weapons and to build terror tunnels.

In fact, Israel has provided intelligence that there has been significant infiltration of UNRWA’s staff by militant groups and that hundreds of UNRWA’s Gaza employees have ties to Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

It is worthy of note that specific individuals, such as a UNRWA school principal who was identified as a politburo member and a Hamas commander in Lebanon who was identified as an UNRWA employee.

And watchdog groups like UN Watch report that UNRWA’s educational system, which uses the Palestinian Authority curriculum, contains antisemitic content, glorifies violence, “martyrdom-jihadist culture,” and fosters an environment conducive to radicalization.

The IDF has also provided visual documentation of Hamas using UNRWA facilities for military purposes. We have also regularly criticized the educational materials that were used in UNRWA schools that we said incited violence, praised jihad, denied Israel’s legitimacy by deleting it from their maps and generally promoted antisemitic narratives.

So, The Jewish Press has consistently advocated for the cessation of funding to UNRWA by the U.S. and other nations and called for it to be dismantled. One opinion piece even explicitly stated that “UNRWA Exists to Help Fight the War to Eradicate Israel.”

Indeed, we continue to view UNRWA as one of several UN agencies with an entrenched hostility towards Israel, functioning as a “bureaucracy of delegitimization masquerading as humanitarian institutions” as one of our articles once put it.

UNRWA officials maintain that sanctions are not warranted and would be counterproductive in any event. They claim that evidence of systemic complicity in Palestinian terror is not compelling and that no other entity possesses the infrastructure or expertise to replace UNRWA’s vast network of services and a humanitarian crisis would ensue.

Yet not only is the premise of a separate agency premised on reinforcing Palestinian refugee status contraindicated in principle, it has plainly fostered terrorism in practice.

Sanctions would force a long-overdue re-evaluation of a major UN agency. By applying pressure, the U.S. can demand reforms and independent oversight to ensure that there is no underwriting of terrorism or extremism.

And as far as the delivery of humanitarian aid is concerned, the U.S. and the international community can and must find alternatives that are verifiable and that do not risk supporting the very entities they are ostensibly committed to fighting against.