CIP Welcomes Introduction of UNRWA Funding Emergency Restoration Act

The Center for International Policy (CIP) welcomes introduction of the UNRWA Funding Emergency Restoration Act (H.R.9649) by Representatives André Carson (IN-7), Pramila Jayapal (WA-7), Jan Schakowsky (IL-9) and more than 60 of their colleagues. The bill seeks to restore statutorily suspended funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the main provider of humanitarian relief in war-torn Gaza. 

In response, CIP Vice President for Government Affairs Dylan Williams issued the following statement:

“It’s great to see such strong support among lawmakers for joining our allies around the world in resuming contributions to this critical agency. Halting funding to UNRWA for a full year was one of the most grievous US foreign policy mistakes since the start of the Gaza war. 

“The Israeli rightwing and other anti-Palestinian forces have long sought to defund UNRWA, mistakenly believing that hobbling the agency would delegitimize Palestinians’ refugee status and national rights. Caving to this malicious campaign while starvation and disease threaten hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians in Gaza is morally unconscionable and undermines the United States’s stated objective of ending the humanitarian crisis in the territory.

“The US suspended its contributions to the agency following accusations by Israel that a small number of low-level UNRWA staff in Gaza had participated in the horrific Hamas-led October 7 attacks. UNRWA immediately fired the individuals and fully cooperated with official inquiries into the accusations. Nearly all funding from other countries that suspended their UNRWA contributions in the wake of this incident has since been resumed — but restoring US contributions remains critical to UNRWA’s operations.

“UNRWA is rigorously regulated and audited, and the sole organization with the ability to provide essential assistance to the majority of Gaza’s population in the foreseeable future – if Israel allows adequate aid to enter and be distributed in the territory. The Biden Administration should work with these lawmakers to ensure US funding to UNRWA is restored as soon as possible, and take the steps necessary to secure a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza that would also allow for the desperately needed surge of humanitarian relief to begin.”

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