The Trump Justice Department believes the embattled United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is not immune from lawsuits in the U.S., reversing the Biden administration’s position.
The Justice Department said in a court filing Thursday that UNRWA is not immune from litigation brought by over 100 victims of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, atrocities, a terror assault several UNRWA employees are believed to have been involved in.
“Previously, the Government expressed the view that certain immunities shielded UNRWA from having to answer,” the Justice Department said in the court documents.
“The Government has since reevaluated that position, and now concludes UNRWA is not immune from this litigation.”
The ten-page court filing explains why the Justice Department does not think UNRWA has immunity in the same way the U.N. and other international bodies do under the International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945.
The Trump administration argues that UNRWA is an affiliate of the U.N., but not one of the principal or subsidiary organizations of the international body. Most of UNRWA’s funding comes separately from the U.N. and the U.N. does not control its day-to-day operations.
UNRWA employees are exempt from U.N. staff policies and operate under UNRWA’s own regulations. UNRWA’s independence allows it to enter into contracts in its own name, rather than the U.N.’s. Therefore, the Trump administration considers UNRWA to be subject to U.S. law rather than a recipient of the immunity given to international organizations.
“The complaint in this case alleges atrocious conduct on the part of UNRWA and its officers,” the court filing concludes.
“The Government believes they must answer these allegations in American courts. The prior Administration’s view that they do not was wrong.”
More than 100 October 7 victims and their families are suing UNRWA and seven past and current leaders in New York federal court for aiding and abetting Hamas’s mass atrocities. The victims are seeking $1 billion in damages, with that total being the amount UNRWA paid its employees in U.S. dollars over the relevant period of time.
UNRWA is tasked with coordinating humanitarian aid into Gaza and allows Hamas to use its facilities for weapons storage and to build tunnels under its property. UNRWA payments to employees in U.S. dollars are thought to have allowed Hamas’s money changers to seize a portion of the payments to bolster its payroll, the lawsuit alleges.
“President Donald Trump’s action of stripping UNRWA of immunity is an important act of moral clarity,” said Representative Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.), Trump’s former nominee for U.N. Ambassador and a staunch supporter of Israel.
“I strongly advocated for this decision to allow victims’ families to pursue justice and expose UNRWA’s shameful complicity in terrorism. America must never protect organizations tied to Hamas and the October 7th terrorist attacks.”
The Trump administration withdrew from UNRWA in February because of its links to Hamas, jeopardizing the agency’s largest source of funding. The U.S. has contributed over $7.1 billion to UNRWA since 1950, and gave UNRWA almost a third of its donor contributions in 2023, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Israel has also banned UNRWA from operating in the Jewish state because of its ties to Hamas and the role some of its staffers played in the October 7 atrocities. Israel’s law barring UNRWA was passed last fall and went into effect earlier this year.
Israel is currently holding up humanitarian aid to Gaza as ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas have ground to a halt. The U.S., Egypt, and Qatar brokered a temporary ceasefire deal in January as the Biden administration was outgoing and the Trump administration was about to take over.
The six-week deal ended in March after Hamas released 33 hostages, 25 living and eight dead, in exchange for approximately 1,900 Palestinian prisoners as the war fighting stopped. President Trump and Israel have pushed Hamas to release the remaining hostages in its captivity if the terror group wants the war in Gaza to end. American citizen Edan Alexander is among the 59 remaining hostages Hamas is holding in captivity.