More than 20 members of the European Parliament on Monday asked the European Commission president not to rely on UNRWA in helping Gaza to recover from the war, citing the U.N. aid agency’s ties to terrorism and extremism.
There have been “serious breaches of trust within UNRWA, including staff members connected to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” the 22 MEPs wrote in an open letter to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the commission, the European Union’s executive arm.
“The rebuilding of Gaza should not repeat the failures of the past. It must be carried out by credible organizations that invest in education, health and opportunity for all—partners that build for peace, not for hate,” added the lawmakers.
Among the signatories were two Dutch MEPs—Bert-Jan Ruissen of the Reformed Political Party (SGP) and Sander Smit of the Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB)—and two German ones: Ralf Volker Schnurrbusch of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Sabine Verheyen of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Other signatories came from Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. The European Parliament has 720 members.
Sweden and the United States have halted cooperation with UNRWA, the authors noted. “It is time for the European Commission to take the same responsible approach and ensure that E.U. funds go only to organizations that uphold the principles of peace. accountability and human dignity,” they added.
Dozens of UNRWA workers have engaged in terrorism in recent years, including the killers of Yonatan Samerano, an IDF soldier slain on Oct. 7, 2023, whose body was taken to Gaza. Israel identified one of them as UNRWA social worker Faisal Ali Mussalem al Naami.
In January, President Donald Trump temporarily suspended U.S. foreign aid to UNRWA, pending reviews of existing development programs. Several countries froze their funding to UNRWA, which usually enjoy a budget of about $1 billion annually. Only the U.S. and New Zealand have not reinstated their funding. Switzerland reinstated it only partially, according to UN Watch, a watchdog group based in Geneva.
Also in January, Israel notified the United Nations it must evacuate all UNRWA premises by Jan. 30.
UN Watch, a nonprofit that monitors the anti-Israel agenda at the U.N., among other controversial policies of the world body, earlier this year wrote in a report that UNRWA officials meet “routinely” with Lebanese and Gazan terrorist groups, “mutually praise each other for ‘cooperation’ and describe each other as ‘partners.’”
UNRWA caters to several million people it defines as refugees in Judea and Samaria, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
Through UNRWA, the United Nations employs a unique refugee definition for Palestinians. UNRWA defines refugees as not only those who fled the war in 1948 but also their descendants in perpetuity, until a “just solution” emerges for their status. The United Nations has a different definition for all other refugees, who cannot give the title to their descendants and often lose it when they are naturalized elsewhere.
Critics of the UNRWA definition say it is designed to perpetuate the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
