Photo: A screenshot of drone footage released by the IDF on May 14, 2024, shows Palestinian gunmen next to UN vehicles at a UNRWA logistics center in Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah. (Israel Defense Forces)
The Trump administration has decided that United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)'s - the UN aid agency for Palestinians - is not immune from being sued in the United States.
This decision - which reverses the U.S. government’s longstanding position that the organization was protected from civil liability - underscores the hardened perspective toward the agency under the Trump administration.
More pertinently, this decision paves the way for a lawsuit that aims to hold the agency accountable for the October 7, 2023 deadly attack on Israel by Hamas.
In the aftermath of Hamas’s attacks, Israel accused at least 12 of 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.
Following the devastating Hamas assault, the victims and their family members filed multiple lawsuits in federal court against UNRWA.
One complaint, filed in June 2024 in the Southern District of New York by more than 100 victims, claims $1 billion in damages from UNRWA, accusing that it aided and abetted the terror group’s assault by "helping Hamas build up the terror infrastructure and personnel that were necessary to carry out the October 7 attack."
The 167-page lawsuit, filed by Chicago-based law firm MM-Law LLC and New York firm Amini LLC, named as defendants UNRWA, as well as seven of its past and current leaders, including head Philippe Lazzarini.
It says UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, let Hamas use its facilities for weapons storage, allowed tunnels and command centers to be built under its sites, and funneled cash into the terror group’s coffers by insisting on paying employees in US dollars.
While many of the claims have been made by Israel over several years, the lawsuit alleges for the first time that UNRWA insisted on paying its employees in US dollars, so that they were unable to spend the dollars directly in the Gaza Strip, which uses the Israeli shekel, needing instead to convert the cash at Hamas-controlled money changers who took a commission.
UNRWA, the plaintiffs said, “knowingly providing Hamas with the US dollars in cash that it needed to pay smugglers for weapons, explosives, and other terror materiel.”
Hamas money changers took a 10%-25% spread on transactions, “ensuring that a predictable percentage of UNRWA’s payroll went to Hamas.” This amounted to $1 billion in the period covered by the claim.
In addition, the lawsuit says UNRWA “knowingly provided material support to Hamas in Gaza” by allowing the terror group safe harbor in its faculties, including schools and other buildings used for weapons storage or command centers, based on the assumption that its premises “were inviolate” and thus immune to attack by Israel.
“The resulting atrocities were foreseeable, and the defendants are liable for aiding and abetting Hamas’ genocide, crimes against humanity, and torture,” the lawsuit says.
It also accuses UNRWA of using Hamas-approved textbooks in its schools that “indoctrinate children from a young age into a death-cult ideology of hatred and genocide” and produce new recruits for the terror group.
The lawsuit includes firsthand accounts of abuse that some hostages suffered during their abduction and imprisonment in Gaza.
“Hamas did not carry out these atrocities without assistance,” the lawsuit says. “Defendants were warned repeatedly that their policies were directly providing assistance to Hamas,” it asserts. “In the face of those warnings, Defendants continued those very policies.”
The lawsuit, filed by Chicago based law firm MM-Law LLC and New York firm Amini LLC, which specialises in looking at who funds terrorists, insists the lawsuit is not political but determined on the needs of the many victims of the October 7 attacks.
While Israel has alleged UNRWA complicity in the Hamas attacks – with Britain and the USA withdrawing funding from the organisation as a result – this case will be the first time those claims will be tested in court.
Up until now, however, the lawsuit was halted by Biden's Department of Justice which wrote to United States District Judge Analisa Torres that "the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over the United Nations. Similarly, the individual U.N. defendants enjoy immunity for their official actions, and two of the individual defendants, by virtue of their high-ranking positions, also enjoy diplomatic immunity."
However, just days ago, Trump's Justice Department acknowledged in a 10-page letter to the court that, “the Government has since reevaluated that position, and now concludes UNRWA is not immune from this litigation.”
“The complaint in this case alleges atrocious conduct on the part of UNRWA and its officers. Of course, such allegations are only the first step on a long road, where plaintiffs will be required to prove what they have alleged. But UNRWA is not above that process — nor are the bulk of the remaining defendants,” the letter states. “The Government believes they must answer these allegations in American courts. The prior Administration’s view that they do not was wrong.”
The letter was signed by Jay Clayton, the new U.S. attorney in Manhattan, and another lawyer in the office, as well as Yaakov Roth, the acting assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s civil division.
With this reversal of stance, the lawsuit for justice can now proceed.
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