JERUSALEM—Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., recently sent a letter to the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, disclosing that some of the $1 billion in American taxpayer money was likely diverted to Hamas.
Cotton’s shocking claim came just weeks after the U.S.-designated terrorist organization, Hamas, executed the 23-year-old American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin in late August.
Cotton slammed the main U.N. relief agency for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, known as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), for its links to Hamas terrorists.
The senator told Fox News Digital “It has become very clear that not another dime of American taxpayer money should ever go to UNRWA again. All aid to Gaza should be paused immediately.”
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A terrorist from Hamas takes part in a military parade. Three Palestinian migrants caught at the southern border were detained after they were allegedly found to have terrorist ties. (Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File Photo)
Last month, Fox News Digital reported that Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon said the scandal-plagued UNRWA has been taken over by Hamas terrorists.
Cotton wrote in his letter to Samantha Power, the administrator of USAID, that he has “grave concerns about the likely misuse of more than one billion dollars in U.S. humanitarian aid sent to Gaza since October 2023. As I predicted would happen from the outset, credible reporting indicates that Hamas terrorists have diverted this aid; indisputable evidence demonstrates that the aid was always at high risk of diversion.”
He added that “In all likelihood, the Biden-Harris administration has prolonged the Gaza war, allowed aid to flow to Israel’s enemies, and misused taxpayer funds.”
Samantha Power, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, delivers a speech during a visit to El Salvador at the Central American University in San Salvador, El Salvador, on June 14, 2021. (REUTERS/Jose Cabezas)
Cotton wrote that last month, USAID “announced approximately $336 million in additional humanitarian funding for Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. On the same day, the United Nations acknowledged that Fateh al-Sharif, a Hamas leader in Lebanon killed in an Israeli airstrike, was employed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. UNRWA, a major USAID partner before October 7, remains a chief conduit for U.N. humanitarian assistance in Gaza despite extensive evidence of its ties to Hamas.”
Judea and Samaria is also known as the West Bank.
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Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 and slaughtered nearly 1,200 people, including over 30 Americans.
When approached for a comment about Cotton’s accusations, UNRWA Washington Office Director William Deere told Fox News Digital, “We wish the Senator’s office would have reached out to us as the letter contains numerous errors, the sum of which renders it largely a series of mismatched facts and unsubstantiated allegations – particularly its assertion that providing desperate people with food, medicine and shelter somehow prolongs a war. First, UNRWA is not a partner with USAID, not before or after October 7, which makes even the letter’s addressee, USAID Administrator Power, the wrong person to whom to write if the Senator’s concerns are with UNRWA.”
Looters take aid from trucks loaded with aid. (Majdi Fathi/TPS-IL)
He added that “The only credible reporting on possible aid diversion by Hamas in Gaza comes from the recent U.S. Special Envoy for Middle Eastern Humanitarian Affairs, Ambassador David Satterfield, who stated, ‘No Israeli official has come to me, come to the administration, with specific evidence of diversion or theft of assistance delivered by the U.N.’”
Deere said “Fateh al-Sharif was placed on administrative leave without pay in March and the Agency investigation was proceeding despite protests, which included the closing of UNRWA’s Lebanon field office for several months and ongoing threats against UNRWA staff.”
Cotton added that “In July, the USAID Inspector General identified multiple ‘shortcomings and vulnerabilities in its overnight mechanisms’ for Gaza aid, such as inadequate vetting of local partners, reliance on self-reporting of terrorist ties from partners, reliance on inadequate vetting by U.N. partners.”
He urged Power to “immediately suspend all aid until taking credible and serious steps to stop Americans’ tax dollars from funding terrorists.”
A USAID spokesperson refuted the allegations against it, claiming in a statement to Fox News Digital that, “USAID does not provide any funding to UNRWA, nor did we do so prior to October 7, 2023. In addition to extensive risk mitigation procedures, USAID works closely with the Government of Israel to assist with the coordination of and discuss potential risks to all humanitarian assistance entering Gaza. USAID has not received evidence from the Government of Israel, our partners, or other sources to support the claims in Senator Cotton’s letter.”
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Humanitarian aid trucks from the United Nations and the World Health Organization are waiting in the Central Gaza Strip to enter the north of the Strip via Rashid Street on April 25, 2024. The aid is intended for hospitals and includes, among other things, medicine, food and fuel. (Photo by Majdi Fathi/TPS)
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told Fox News Digital, “The United States ceased funding UNRWA in January immediately following knowledge of allegations that some UNRWA staff may have participated in the heinous October 7th attacks.”
The spokesperson added “In March, the U.S. Congress prohibited any U.S. funding of UNRWA through at least 2025. We have and continue to redirect our assistance to other partners and avenues to help Palestinians. We support steps to strengthen UNRWA impartiality and neutrality, including to respond to allegations of ties to terrorism. “
According to the State Department spokesperson, “UNRWA is not a terrorist organization. We appreciate UNRWA’s critical role in providing life-saving assistance to Palestinians and essential education, health, relief and social services programs and emergency assistance in Gaza and the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.”
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., questions President Biden’s pick to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Steven Dettelbach, on Wednesday, May 25, 2022, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. (Pool Video)
In July, Israeli lawmakers approved the first reading of a bill that would cut ties with the controversial UNRWA agency and declare it a terrorist entity. Knesset member Yulia Malinovsky, the bill’s sponsor, called UNRWA “a fifth column within the State of Israel” and said it was high time that the agency was outlawed in the country.
Congress’ House Foreign Affairs Committee passed initial legislation in July that would build on an already existing funding freeze of the multimillion-dollar organization and direct the State Department to recover previously donated monies.
After Israel revealed that UNRWA employed Hamas terrorists, including many who reportedly participated in the massacre on Oct. 7, the U.S. suspended aid to UNRWA.
Deere said that “Left out of Senator Cotton’s analysis was the fact the Israeli Government had not informed UNRWA since 2011 of any concerns relating to Agency staff.”
A spokesman for Cotton told Fox News Digital in response to UNRWA’s charges that, “Administrator Power and USAID do not have an adequate vetting process to ensure that American taxpayer dollars do not end up with terrorists. If a terrorist front organization like UNRWA is the only “distribution system” in Gaza, Power should reconsider sending aid there in the first place. Our tax dollars should not fund a group that has assisted in the kidnapping and murder of Americans.”
Former President Donald Trump’s administration had pulled the plug on UNRWA. The Biden administration quickly restored funding.
Palestinians, who left their homes and took refuge in Rafah city under hard conditions, carry the flour they received in the area where UNRWA distributes flour to families as Israeli attacks continue in Rafah of Gaza on Jan. 28, 2024. (Abed Zagout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Last week, Israel’s mass circulation daily, Israel Hayom, reported that “The Israel Land Authority (ILA) is seizing the land of UNRWA’s headquarters in Jerusalem, in order to build 1,440 housing units.”
The paper said “As the extent of UNRWA and its employees’ collaboration in the massacre at Gaza border communities by Hamas and their role in providing assistance for murder, kidnapping, and more continues to be revealed, a significant step has been taken for the first time against the refugee agency.”
Fox News’ Ruth Marks Eglash contributed to this report.