Activists face arrest after disrupting heated House hearing on UNRWA Palestinian aid agency
Washington DC - Several activists were arrested at a Tuesday US House hearing on funding for UNRWA, a critical United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday held a hearing entitled UNRWA Exposed: Examining the Agency’s Mission and Failures, amid Israeli allegations that 12 employees of the agency took part in the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Following the as-yet unproven allegations, the US announced it was suspending additional funding to UNRWA. Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, and the UK swiftly followed suit.
During the House hearing, Republican lawmakers repeatedly slammed UNRWA in the strongest terms.
"The United Nations relief workers agency is a terrorist-supporting entity, ladies and gentlemen," Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania claimed.
His colleague, Christopher Smith of New Jersey, called UNRWA the "identical twin" of Hamas.
Rich McCormick of Georgia suggested without evidence that even more UNRWA workers were implicated in the October 7 attacks: "Those 12 employees are just the tip of the iceberg when you talk about possibly thousands of employees' loyalty to Hamas and antisemitic and anti-American interests."
Democratic Representative Jason Crow of Colorado countered his GOP colleagues' assertions, stating, "The horrifying and inexcusable actions of roughly a dozen people should not speak for the over 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza."
"Humanitarian aid and conflict zones must continue. And it’s difficult under the best of circumstances. And we know that conditions in Gaza are far from that," Crow added.
Activists speak out during UNRWA hearing
Also voicing their opposition to the move to cut UNRWA funding were members of the feminist anti-war organization CODEPINK, which reported that five activists were arrested for disrupting the hearing.
A video of the action shows several women dressed in pink t-shirts reading "Let Gaza Live" rising to speak out against the Biden administration's decision.
"One atrocity does not justify another! Israel does not have the right to starve the civilians of Gaza!" one activist proclaims in a video.
"I have an important message for you, that is do not defund UNRWA!" she says as she is dragged from the room.
"It's the only agency that's capable of even managing to provide services. There's no other agency large enough to have the capacity to meet the needs of the genocide that's happening to the Gazan people. The Palestinians in Gaza are dying!"
Israel has killed at least some 27,000 Palestinians and forcibly displaced around 2 million more in its brutal bombardment and invasion of Gaza. Many of the survivors are at imminent risk of disease and starvation.
"I'm an Army colonel. I'm a retired diplomat, and what the US is doing, the Biden administration, is part of the genocide," charges Ann Wright in a separate video. "The Biden administration is complicit in genocide. It is killing people just as the Israelis are. It is our weapons, it's our money, it's our money that's doing this, and the money for UNRWA is very important to keep people from starving to death after we're trying to kill them all."
In a statement after the action, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK, said, "UNRWA is the lifeline for people who are starving; cutting its funding is just inhumane."
Biden administration faces heat for defunding UNRWA
The Biden administration's decision to defund UNRWA came the same day the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in favor of provisional measures to protect Palestinian lives in Gaza in a landmark case launched by South Africa. The panel of judges determined that at least some of Israel's military actions could potentially stand in violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention.
It was also the day that a federal court in Oakland heard testimony in a lawsuit accusing President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin of complicity in Israel's genocide.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, last week warned that some states' decision to pause UNRWA funding "overtly defies" the ICJ ruling.
She described the decision to defund the agency as "collectively punishing millions of Palestinians at the most critical time, and most likely violating their obligations under the Genocide Convention."
Cover photo: Screenshot/X/CODEPINK