During an annual pledging summit on Tuesday, the United States representative for UN management and reform, Jeff Bartos, issued a scathing rebuke of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), calling on the international community to entirely dismantle financial backing for what he termed a terror-corrupted entity.
“Another annual pledging conference for UNRWA. Same speeches," Bartos said, as quoted by JNS. “Same condemnation of Israel. Same failures to condemn Hamas."
The high-level meeting had been organized to secure monetary pledges for UNRWA. Management at the organization noted that it is currently navigating a $100 million budget shortfall for the present financial year, a crisis that persists despite aggressive operational rollbacks.
Among those who urged UN member states to donate funds to UNRWA was United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who warned that a combination of stringent cost-cutting and aggressive austerity measures has brought the humanitarian body dangerously close to total collapse.
In January 2024, Israel provided evidence that roughly a dozen UNRWA employees participated in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre.
Although a wave of other major international donors temporarily froze their funding while the United Nations reviewed the claims, the majority have since reinstated their financial support.
Echoing the explicit foreign policy platform of the Trump administration, Bartos pleaded with global leaders to abandon their fiscal relationship with the organization altogether.
“Year after year, you choose to fund UNRWA in Gaza, hoping for - and perhaps even expecting - a different result. It is time - it is well past time - to break this cycle," he said.
“This year, you have the choice to stop funding UNRWA schools in Gaza that indoctrinate the hatred of Jews and glorify terrorism," Bartos added. “To stop underwriting an organization that has become a subsidiary of Hamas, whose employees took part in one of the most barbaric terrorist attacks in human history."
The American diplomat further implored General Assembly members to transition away from structural systems that he claimed lock local populations into structural reliance. Instead of what he described as “endless cycles of dependency and forever refugeehood," Bartos recommended that donor governments divert their humanitarian spending toward the American-championed Board of Peace to help regional civilians establish lasting self-sufficiency.
Christian Saunders, currently fulfilling the role of acting commissioner-general for the embattled organization, expressed moderate dissatisfaction regarding the total volume of financial commitments announced at the session, describing them as “a little disappointing," though precise tallies were not immediately finalized.
Addressing the specific allegations from Bartos concerning the agency's inability to root out radical elements within its payroll, Saunders clarified that his office is structurally dependent on direct intelligence handovers from foreign governments - particularly Israeli intelligence agencies - to properly adjudicate and review internal misconduct.
“If people are committing criminal acts," he claimed, “then we take action."
Following the Israeli revelations, the UN formed a review group, headed by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, to look into the Israeli allegations. The group said in its report that it found neutrality-related issues" in UNRWA but also claimed that Israel had yet to provide evidence for allegations that a significant number of its staff were members of terrorist organizations.
Despite all the evidence showing UNRWA’s deep ties to Hamas, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that Israel must facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip through UN agencies, including UNRWA. That ruling was criticized by Israel as well as by the US.