Australia out of step with US on UNRWA funding

The Biden administration has slapped a one year ban on support for UNRWA, just over a week after Australia resumed funding the Palestinian aid agency.

Right wing Jews protest against UNRWA in Jerusalem. Picture: Amir Levy/Getty Images

The Albanese government has slipped further out of step with the US on Gaza after the Biden administration slapped a one year ban on support for UNRWA, just over a week after Australia resumed funding the Palestinian aid agency.

Australian Jewish groups said the US move – in a bill to avert a partial government shutdown – should mark the beginning of the end for the “corrupt, inept” organisation whose employees have been accused of participating in Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced on March 15 that Australia would resume its $6m a year in support for UNRWA, declaring it was “not a terrorist organisation, and that existing and additional safeguards sufficiently protect Australian taxpayer funding”.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin said the move had been a “serious mistake” that will allow Hamas to once again hijack aid distribution and heap more suffering on its own people.

He said the US decision “hopefully signals the beginning of the end for a corrupt, inept bureaucracy whose facilities double as weapons depots and whose staff moonlight as Hamas killers”.

“Crucially, the package does not cut aid to Gaza, it merely redirects it to other humanitarian projects to ensure that the aid gets to the right places and taxpayer dollars don’t end up in the pockets of terrorists,” Mr Ryvchin said.

“All governments should follow this lead.”

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin. Picture: John Feder/The Australian

Congress voted early on Saturday in Washington DC to strip hundreds of millions of dollars from the UN Relief and Works Agency, amid Israeli allegations that 12 of the agency’s employees took part in the October 7 massacre.

The new funding restrictions, advanced by Republicans as part of an $1.2 trillion government spending package, extend America’s funding pause for UNRWA for at least a year.

Republican Mario Diaz-Balart said in a speech from the House floor on Friday that UNRWA was “a de facto subsidiary of Hamas”.

“The passage of this bill means not one additional dollar from American taxpayers will go fund this deeply flawed organisation,” he said.

The UN denies such assertions, and has launched an independent investigation into the claims due to be released next month.

A day before the Albanese government announced Australia’s reinstatement of UNRWA’s funding, it was briefed on new Israeli intelligence findings suggesting the number of UNRWA employees who took part in the October 7 massacre had grown from 12 to 15.

DFAT was informed on March 14 that Israel had believed 15 UNRWA employees had crossed over into Israel, directly assisted in kidnappings or helped with the transfer of weapons.

A Palestinian man transports sacks of humanitarian aid at the Rafa distribution centre in the southern Gaza Strip. Picture: AFP

The Israeli intelligence briefing also suggested there were 2135 UNRWA employees who were active members of a terrorist organisation and that 1650 of the agency’s employees were Hamas members.

DFAT officials were told 485 UNRWA staff were operatives in the military wings of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Australia has broken with the Biden administration on Gaza multiple times since the October 7 attack, voting against the US in the United Nations to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and refusing to repudiate South Africa’s genocide case against Israel - a case Secretary of State Antony Blinken described as “meritless”.