As Gaza Starves, Republicans Take Aim at Another Lifeline. Almost No One Noticed.

The Intercept

4 days ago

As the world watches Gaza starve, Republicans in Congress quietly advanced a new ban on funding a United Nations agency that delivers food aid to Palestinians.
The GOP-dominated House Appropriations Committee last week voted to bar financial support for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, long the main hub of aid distribution in Gaza.
If passed by Congress, the ban would reinforce a financial blockade on UNRWA that began last year as Israel subjected the agency to an intense pressure campaign.
The latest move, however, comes amid an increasingly dire situation, as U.N. experts decried a full-fledged famine, and other Western countries are holding emergency meetings to address the crisis.
The timing of the latest proposed ban dismayed observers who have sought to increase the flow of aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
'It seems incredibly hypocritical to suddenly be shocked by these images when every humanitarian agency has said no one can replace UNRWA,' said Yara Asi, an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida's School of Global Health Management and Informatics.
Congress first banned funding for UNRWA in March 2024 as Israel pushed allegations that the agency's employees were involved in the October 7, 2023, attacks. Democratic President Joe Biden had already paused funding for the agency.
The House and Senate are working to replace that appropriations package with a new one for the next financial year. On July 23, the House Appropriations Committee passed a bill focusing on funding for national security and State Department programs.
The $46 billion bill would slash funding for many foreign aid programs and ban funding for UNRWA, while handing Israel $3.3 billion to buy more American arms.
Taking last year's ban a step further, the House appropriations bill would prohibit funding for the United Nations secretariat, the organization's parent agency, until it released an unredacted copy of an August 2024 investigation conducted by the U.N. into Israel's claims that UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7 attacks.
The U.N. investigation found that nine employees out of 13,000 in Gaza 'may' have played a role in the attacks. UNRWA fired the nine staffers.
In a statement, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, the Florida Republican who chairs the national security and State Department subcommittee of the appropriations committee, hailed the anti-UNRWA measures as 'examples of how this bill strengthens national security and supports an America First foreign policy.'
In the wake of the U.N. internal investigation, European countries have gradually restored funding for UNRWA, which operates in Gaza along with other U.N. agencies such as the World Food Programme.
President Donald Trump has opted to go another route, instead providing funding for the shadowy Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, at whose food distributions hundreds of people have been killed by Israeli soldiers.
On Sunday, 21 Democratic senators led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to 'immediately cease' funding for the GHF and return to 'UN-led aid coordination mechanisms with enhanced oversight' — without mentioning UNRWA by name.
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The growing scenes of starvation in Gaza have prompted even staunchly pro-Israel Democrats to call on Israel to allow more food aid into Gaza. Many of them, however, have avoided blaming Israel for the crisis.
Even Trump contravened Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday by acknowledging that children are starving, while making a vague promise that the U.S. would set up 'food centers.'
By contrast, UNRWA says it is ready to deliver the equivalent of 6,000 truckloads of aid as soon as it receives a 'green light' from Israel.
The link between the pressure campaign against UNRWA and the scenes playing out in Gaza now is clear, Asi said, even if Israeli and U.S. officials don't want to admit it.
'Those lines have not really been connected, between defunding the largest humanitarian response agency in Gaza with obvious humanitarian disaster after. They were warned,' she said.
Rep. André Carson, D-Ind., introduced a bill in March to restore UNRWA funding that has drawn support from dozens of mostly progressive House members.
Supporters of restoring funding for UNRWA acknowledge that Carson's bill is an extreme long shot in a Congress dominated by pro-Israel lawmakers but still say that it is an important symbolic move.
'It's a tough road for UNRWA and U.S. funding for UNRWA for the foreseeable future, unfortunately. But we need to really draw a contrast: We had UNRWA distributing aid across 400 sites across the Gaza Strip before,' said Hassan El-Tayyab. the legislative director for Middle East policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. 'We are heading towards a large-scale mass starvation in Gaza if something doesn't happen.'