FM praises US Congress vote not to resume funding to UNRWA until at least 2025

Foreign Minister Israel Katz praises the US Congress decision not to resume funding to UNRWA until at least 2025, as part of a funding bill approved early this morning.

“The historic ban on US funding to UNRWA that passed today with an overwhelming bipartisan support, demonstrates what we knew all along: UNRWA is part of the problem and can not be part of the solution,” Katz writes on X, formerly Twitter.

“UNRWA will not be a part of Gaza’s landscape in the aftermath of Hamas. Thousands of UNRWA employees are involved in Hamas terror activities and their facilities were used for terrorist purposes.”

He adds a call for other countries to also ban funding the UN agency for Palestinians, after Israeli surfaced allegations in late January that 12 of UNRWA’s employees actively participated in Hamas’s October 7 terror onslaught on southern communities, when terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 253 hostages to Gaza.

Those staffers have already been fired by the agency.

Israel argues that Hamas’s infiltration into the agency runs far deeper and that some 1,500 employees (some 10%) have active ties to terror groups.

The United States, along with more than a dozen countries, suspended its funding to UNRWA in January after the allegations were raised, although several have since resumed payments.