Republican Congressman Brian Mast, who served in the Israeli Defense Forces and the U.S. Army, has introduced legislation to permanently defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
🚨Today, I introduced a bill that would push to permanently DISBAND UNRWA.
— Rep. Brian Mast (@RepBrianMast) January 30, 2024
UNRWA is funneling American tax dollars to terrorism. And now we know that a significant part of the UNRWA workforce were participants in the October 7th attack.
No more.
The bill comes after the Wall Street Journal revealed the "relief" agency is infested with terrorists who not only indoctrinate children in UNWRA schools to murder their Jewish neighbors, but that thousands of workers participated in the October 7 massacre against Israeli civilians. UNRWA workers and teachers also helped take Israelis and Americans hostage in the Gaza Strip.
"Intelligence estimates shared with the U.S. conclude that around 1,200 of Unrwa’s roughly 12,000 employees in Gaza have links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and about half have close relatives who belong to the Islamist militant groups. Both groups have been designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. and others. Hamas has run Gaza since a 2007 coup," the WSJ reports.
Mast also held a hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday to further expose UNRWA's direct ties to Islamic terrorists.
UNRWA is a front: plain and simple. While it masquerades as a relief organization, it has built the infrastructure to support Hamas and has indoctrinated Palestinian children to hate all Jews.
— Rep. Brian Mast (@RepBrianMast) January 30, 2024
Not a single penny of our tax dollars should go to UNRWA. pic.twitter.com/9ucDrLZnP7
While the Biden administration has temporarily halted funding to UNWRA, a $51 million allocation made before January 24 will still be distributed.
"The United States will continue to fund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) despite announcing a temporary pause in funding, according to a January 27 report. In light of allegations that 12 UNRWA employees participated in Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, the State Department announced on January 26 that it will 'temporarily pause additional funding' to the agency. However, a State Department spokesperson later clarified that funding committed before January 24 will 'remain in effect.' Washington had already committed $51 million to UNRWA for 2024 prior to this date," the Foundation for Defense of Democracies reports.
In early 2021 Biden reinstated UNWRA funding after it was pulled under the Trump administration. This was done despite the group's years long history of terrorism and an admission from the State Department that new funding would end up in the hands of Hamas.