Experts urge Trump to ban terror-linked UN agency from his Gaza peace plan

Amid the implementation of President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan to end the Hamas-Israel war, Mideast experts are urging that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) have no presence in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip because of its reported support for the terrorist organization Hamas and its track record of severe incompetence.

Hugh Dugan, who served on the National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for International Organization Affairs in 2020, told Fox News Digital, “UNRWA’s mission was to provide relief and support pending a durable political solution.  As such, a solution is at hand – pending Hamas’ compliance to disarm immediately – truly neutral humanitarian operations beg for new measures and modalities.”

He added, “The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation for months has distributed aid independently of U.N. channels and has prevented diversion by militant groups. Other U.N. humanitarian operations would be well-served to take cover and operate within GHF’s shadow under the blistering sun of critical human need.” 

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Dugan, a former diplomat who served at the U.S. mission to the world body, said UNRWA has turned a cottage industry into a sprawling transnational bureaucracy that has perpetuated financial waste and prolonged the conflict by granting refugee status to the descendants of Palestinian refugees after the first Israel-Arab states’ war.

“After the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, UNRWA’s critical mission was to provide direct relief and works program for 800,000 Palestinian refugees. Its job was to put itself out of business as soon as possible, however it went the route of mission creep. Over decades managerially captured by the U.N. bureaucracy, UNRWA perpetuates the status of refugees now swelling to 5.9 million,” he said. 

Dugan concluded, “After billions of dollars, Palestinians continue in desperate dependence for humanitarian aid of the most basic kind. This has positioned UNRWA as a political actor in its own right beyond its original mission. And its politics and relations with Hamas reveal that UNRWA lost irretrievably its grounding in humanitarian neutrality and non-discrimination.”   

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In August, Fox News Digital obtained a U.S. State Department public assessment to Congress, stating, “The administration has determined UNRWA is irredeemably compromised and now seeks its full dismantlement.”  The Biden administration had given UNRWA $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer funding since 2021 before the freeze in 2024 went into effect.

UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma countered allegations against the organization as dangerous and told Fox News Digital that such claims have “never been substantiated, let alone proven,” adding, “The United Nations has undertaken investigations and external reviews, and none of these claims have been substantiated. What these claims have done, most importantly, is they have banned UNRWA, the largest humanitarian organization, from delivering food to hungry people.”

Touma said “It also put my colleagues in Gaza in danger and have put their lives at serious risks due to this dis-information. UNRWA has 12,000 staff on the ground in Gaza It is impossible to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza without UNRWA and its teams. We know that all other attempts to replace UNRWA have been disastrous.”

She continued, “Given [the] above and the action that the U.N. has taken against these claims, these claims remain as such—claims with huge consequences on the lives of our colleagues, the delivery of humanitarian assistance and the reputation of this agency,” she said.

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that “President Trump and Secretary Rubio have long stated that Hamas will never govern Gaza again. That includes institutions they have infiltrated to sustain their power and influence.”

The spokesperson reiterated the directive from “President Trump’s Feb. 4 Executive Order regarding ending funding or reviewing support for certain U.N. and international organizations,” which declared that “UNRWA has reportedly been infiltrated by members of groups long designated by the Secretary of State (Secretary) as foreign terrorist organizations, and UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.”

Former IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said, “UNRWA has proven itself to be irredeemably corrupt, infiltrated by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad and part of the reason why Hamas was able to recruit tens of thousands of Jihad-indoctrinated youth and to sustain itself during two years of fighting. 

“If we desire a deradicalized Gaza, the first organization that has to be removed from power is Hamas. The close second is UNRWA. Both must not have any role in shaping the present or the future of Gaza. Now is the time to invest in a better future for Gaza and the region, and the time to remove UNRWA.”

Conricus said that “Ever since Hamas took power over the Gaza Strip in 2007, UNRWA has been a facilitator for Hamas’s military buildup. By diverting international aid to provide for the civilian needs of Gaza‘s population per Hamas guidance, UNRWA enabled Hamas to divert the majority of their funds to military buildup in the shape of digging tunnels, producing rockets, acquiring drones and sophisticated missiles and paying and training a large force of Jihadi terrorists.”

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He said that “Throughout the two-year war, Hamas fighters systematically used UNRWA facilities and infrastructure to support and sustain their military operations against Israel. Hamas underground command posts were exposed directly underneath UNRWA facilities in Gaza City, including a supply of electricity and IT services from UNRWA offices to the underground Hamas bunker. UNRWA schools all across the Gaza Strip were systematically used by Hamas as military staging grounds, production facilities for weapons, intelligence collection sites, and hideouts for Hamas fighters.” 

When asked about the role of UNRWA, an IDF spokesperson told Fox News Digital, “It’s the political echelon to decide everything regarding the peace deal and the post-war details.” Fox News Digital reached out to Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson on several occasions for a comment. Israel’s government banned UNRWA operations in January, 2025.