In the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 attacks, Israel accused at least 12 of United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)’s direct employees of participating in the Hamas-led attack.
Israel's report revealed as well that some of the hostages were held by UNRWA employees in their homes in Gaza and that UNRWA facilities have been used by Hamas.
UNRWA’s involvement goes beyond the atrocities that took place in southwestern Israel on Oct. 7. While 10% of UNRWA’s employees are confirmed Hamas terrorists, half of the workforce identifies with Hamas, with more than 6,000 Hamas members related to UNRWA workers.
Since the reports came to light, the US and other donor countries temporarily suspended funding of UNRWA “pending an investigation by the United Nations.”
Back in February 2024, represented by attorneys Robert J. Tolchin in Brooklyn and Nitsana Darshan-Leitner in Tel Aviv, founder of the Shurat HaDin Law Center, an Israeli human rights organization dedicated to combating terrorism and anti-Israel activities, more than 8,000 plaintiffs, including 1,500 dual American-Israeli citizens and 6,500 Israelis filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia claiming that the United States Department of State violated anti-terrorism laws by providing billions of US tax dollars to UNRWA.
The complaint demands a complete cessation of all funding to UNRWA in contravention of the law.
The defendants include US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is responsible for coordinating all US federal aid to UNRWA, among other US government employees who share the responsibilities.
The U.S. is a major funder of UNRWA. In 2023 alone, U.S. support for UNRWA reached a record high of $422 million. Deprived of it, UNRWA could collapse - which is the goal of the lawsuit, especially in light of UNRWA’s terror involvement.
The complaint reads: “UNRWA is not an impartial, non-governmental agency with the motive of simply providing humanitarian aid and relief to purported Palestinian civilians. Instead, UNRWA has become an instrumentality and agency of Hamas that employs terrorist members and individuals supportive of Hamas and other designated terrorist organizations whose mission is to eradicate Israel and kill innocent civilians. UNRWA staff has committed murder, rapes, and injury, with the financing being footed by the United States and other Western donor countries.”
It notes the US’s ignoring of this information, saying the administration “permitted millions of dollars to flow to UNRWA despite it being publicly known that such funding is diverted to terrorism and UNRWA employees are complicit” and thus, “United States’ support of terrorism that murders and maims American citizens must cease once and for all.”
The State Department filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that the pause in funding has not yet been lifted, nor is there any plan to reinstate funding in the foreseeable future. Accordingly, the Plaintiffs lack standing because; 1) the funding had stopped by the time they brought their claim, therefore there is no injury-in-fact and (2) they cannot establish an injury that is traceable to them personally and redressable by the Court even if the funding had not ceased.
Mr. Tolchin has just slammed them back with vehement opposition to the motion.
"Neither argument is meritorious. [As to the second claim] that Plaintiffs do not establish that their injury is traceable to Defendants, this is false. Plaintiffs have lost family members at the hands of terrorists who utilized UNRWA funding Defendants authorized for their weapons, training, and logistical support."
As to the claim that funding has paused - "voluntary cessation of a challenged practice will moot a case only if the defendant can show that the practice cannot reasonably be expected to recur.' F.B.I. v. Fikre, citing Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services.
In this case, however, "Defendants’ own motion concedes that the cessation in funding to UNRWA is nothing more than a “temporary pause” and that funding could resume in the near future, undercutting any assertions of mootness.
"Accordingly, the State Department intended for and understood the pause to be non-permanent from the outset. Defendants simply speculate and assume funding to UNRWA will never resume and is not “reasonably expected to recur.” But, if speculation is the order of the day, it is pellucid is that UNRWA funding very well may resume. In any event, speculation is insufficient for Defendant to meet its “formidable” burden of showing the practice will not recur," the motion filing states.
Additionally, Mr. Tolchin argues that the lawsuit seeks for a return of funds already unlawfully disbursed to UNRWA.
"Finally, the fact that funding has been paused and not terminated does not mean that the hundreds of millions of dollars ($766 million in 2022 and 2023 alone) Defendants previously allowed to be sent to UNRWA are not continuously being used to perpetrate acts of terror. Funds that were sent to UNRWA are fungible and those sent by the United States, as opposed to by other countries, cannot be distinguished. Defendants’ unlawful provision of funds to UNRWA without complying with applicable statutes, along with their failure to monitor the use of the funds, continues long after the money has left the United States and has serious ramifications in the region regardless of any pause in further funding. Indeed, Plaintiffs requested that Defendants attempt to recover the funds they authorized to be sent to UNRWA to prevent ongoing and future harm from the use of those funds by terrorists.
"This Court can grant effectual relief by entering Plaintiff’s requested injunction requiring Defendants to claw back funds that were sent to UNRWA and prohibiting further funding to UNRWA," Mr. Tolchin wrote.
The court will release a written ruling on the motion in the coming months.
“UNRWA is a disaster for both Israel and the Palestinians. In fact, the Palestinians deserve a lot better than UNRWA. They deserve an organization that will not designate them as refugees indefinitely,” stated Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, founder of Shurat HaDin—Israel Law Center, an Israeli-based civil rights organization that has represented hundreds of terror victims in many lawsuits.
“If UNRWA keeps teaching Palestinians that one day they will return to their homes in Tel Aviv, Acre and Haifa, and continue feeding the illusion of the right of return, Palestinians will never have a chance at a better life,” she added.
Tolchin analogized the deterioration of UNRWA to what happens when cities defer maintenance on their bridges, “eventually, there are catastrophic problems. The writing was on the wall about UNRWA 50 years ago, which is why back in the 1960’s Congress prohibited US funding of UNRWA unless UNRWA affirmatively prevented any of its benefits from going to what was then referred to as ‘guerilla fighters.’ Unfortunately, for years, US administrations have looked the other way and funded it, even though it was widely known that UNRWA in Gaza had become infested by Hamas. It is time for the US administration to take the blinders off, stop with the wishful, magical thinking that UNRWA tomorrow is going to be any different than UNRWA for decades past. It is time for a new paradigm. That is what this lawsuit is all about."
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