We will not be intimidated: UNRWA USA defends life-saving work against misinformation and lawfare attacks

Washington DC — For 20 years, UNRWA USA and our 150,000+ donors across the United States have supported life-saving humanitarian assistance for Palestine refugees across the Gaza Strip, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria via our partner UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. 

In Gaza, where Palestinians have suffered under 22 months of atrocities, our supporters have enabled the delivery of UNRWA food assistance to those facing forced mass starvation; frontline medicine and treatment to the sick and injured; education and trauma support to children who deserve the chance to grow up and have a future; and hope to communities living under never ending atrocity. Palestine refugees have endured generation after generation of displacement, violence, and horrific losses;  the generous support of the American people – via UNRWA USA –  has not only enabled UNRWA to meet their humanitarian needs, but safeguard the dignity of generations of Palestinians.

As we write, Gaza is facing mass, deliberate, forced starvation. On July 29th, famine experts determined that the worst-case scenario of famine is unfolding in Gaza. Over 320,000 children, the entire population of children under the age of 5, are at risk of acute malnutrition. As UNRWA USA Executive Director Mara Kronenfeld explained in The Nation last week, this humanitarian crisis is engineered and intentional. Beleaguered, starving civilians are being starved to death and shot at while they seek food. The Israeli government is preventing 6000 UNRWA aid trucks – carrying enough to feed the entire population of the Gaza Strip for three months – from entering Gaza, while babies are being left to die. 

And now, even our ability to help as concerned American citizens is under attack. UNRWA USA has been recently targeted with another baseless lawsuit, part of a coordinated campaign of misinformation and lawfare, meant to bully, distract, defame, and dismantle the very delivery of humanitarian aid that UNRWA provides, as mandated by the United Nations for 75 years, and that Palestinians rely on to survive. 

These allegations against UNRWA are not new. They have been thoroughly investigated and thoroughly debunked, including by the United Nations highest investigatory agency, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, and through an independent review led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna. Both investigations reaffirmed UNRWA’s neutrality safeguards. As a result of these investigations, the global community of nations continues to support UNRWA, while the United States remains the major outlier by continuing its refusal to fund the Agency. UNRWA is the only organization with the capacity, infrastructure, and community trust to deliver aid at scale in Gaza. The continued regurgitation of false claims isn’t about concern or due diligence or any new information; it’s about weaponizing misinformation to dismantle a life-saving institution precisely because of its central role in keeping Palestinian refugees and the hope of Palestinian freedom and self-determination alive. 

This action is part of a broader effort to weaponize the legal system against those who dare to care. It is not about justice; it is about starving and erasing Palestinians and trying to silence those who support their humanity and human development, including the United Nations and its partners.  Aid workers, journalists, and human rights defenders have all been targeted by the same playbook: intimidate, exhaust, and silence anyone who stands in solidarity with Palestinian human rights, including by weaponizing the law. 

And it’s a distraction that conveniently shifts attention away from the deadly, intentional failures of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a hastily assembled U.S. and Israeli-backed “alternative” to UNRWA. Former decorated US Green Beret Anthony Aguilar, once a GHF contractor, described indiscriminate violence against Palestinian civilians during his time in Gaza, including the use of live ammunition on unarmed civilians seeking food. This was just one of the many war crimes he says he witnessed while in Gaza.  More than 1,400 Palestinians have been shot and killed while trying to access food through GHF’s terrifying gauntlet. Meanwhile, the very agency already equipped with the infrastructure and trust to reverse the manmade famine in Gaza — UNRWA — is being sidelined, smeared, and legally attacked. 

Both UNRWA and UNRWA USA’s missions are legal, moral, and humanitarian. This lawsuit is meritless, absurd, dangerous, and morally reprehensible. And UNRWA USA will not be intimidated. 

Starvation does not pause for politics. Neither will we. We’re grateful to every supporter who continues to stand with UNRWA USA and Palestine refugees in this urgent fight for life.

Any questions about ongoing litigation should be directed to UNRWA USA’s legal counsel:

Joseph Pace, who can be reached at jpace@jpacelaw.com; Maria LaHood and Diala Shamas, Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) who can be reached at mlahood@ccrjustice and dshamas@ccrjustice.org respectively; and Luna Droubl, Beldock, Hoffman and Levine who can be reached at ldroubi@blhny.com.

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UNRWA USA National Committee (UNRWA USA) is an independent nonprofit organization that provides support for the humanitarian work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). UNRWA USA lifts up the voices, experiences, and humanity of Palestine refugees to secure American support for resources essential to every human being, for the promise of a better life. US taxpayers are eligible for tax deductions for donations made through UNRWA USA.