President Biden announced Wednesday in Israel that the United States will be providing $100 million in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank.
Shortly after Biden announced the aid package during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the White House released a statement saying that the aid would be distributed through the United Nations and several unspecified non-governmental organizations.
“This funding will help support over a million displaced and conflict-affected people with clean water, food, hygiene support, medical care, and other essential needs,” the statement read. “The United States provides humanitarian assistance through trusted partners including UN agencies and international NGOs. Civilians are not to blame and should not suffer for Hamas’s horrific terrorism. Civilian lives must be protected and assistance must urgently reach those in need.”
Biden also announced during the press conference that he would seek an “unprecedented” aid package from Congress to assist Israel in its fight against Hamas. The administration is reportedly considering seeking as much as $100 billion for a package that would include aid to both Israel and Ukraine.
Israel has also agreed to begin allowing humanitarian aid to flow across the Gaza-Egypt border, Biden announced.
Biden’s announcement comes days after the United Nations Relief and Works Agency deleted a social-media post revealing that an unauthorized group had stolen humanitarian supplies.
“@UNRWA received reports that yesterday a group of people with trucks purporting to be from the Ministry of Health of the de facto authorities in #Gaza, removed fuel and medical equipment from the Agency’s compound in #GazaCity,” the agency wrote on Monday morning without explicitly naming Hamas. “@UNRWA fuel & other types of material are kept for strictly humanitarian purposes – any other use is strongly condemned.”
However, hours after first publishing the note, UNWRA quietly deleted the message. Sources familiar with the situation confirmed to Haaretz, a left-leaning Israeli publication, that the story is accurate.
The Biden administration has funneled more than $730 million to the UNRWA for refugee assistance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The UNRWA has faced charges of corruption and failure for years. UNRWA has been known to harbor personnel who have incited violence against the Jewish people, and leaders of the organization have openly praised Hamas in the past. An internal ethics report charged the group with “nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and other abuses of authority, for personal gain, to suppress legitimate dissent and to otherwise achieve” insiders’ personal objectives. UNRWA workers have been caught throwing firebombs at an Israeli bus, and UNRWA buildings have stored Hamas weapons.
The Trump administration stopped funding UNRWA in 2018, calling it an “irredeemably flawed operation.” President Biden reversed that decision at the beginning of his term, and the U.S. is now currently the agency’s largest funder.
According to an unclassified version of a congressional report acquired by the Washington Free Beacon, the State Department has cited UNRWA with hundreds of infractions throughout Biden’s term involving “armed incursions,” “the use of weapons in or near facilities,” and the construction of at least two tunnels under its schools that enabled terrorists to move weapons and personnel.
Ron DeSantis and other GOP leaders have objected to the sending of further aid to a region where terrorists have a history of pilfering it, especially when Americans are being held hostage.
“Innocent Americans and Israelis are being held hostage by Hamas terrorists, yet Biden is more focused on sending “humanitarian aid” to Gaza that will be commandeered by Hamas terrorists. Biden should work with Israel to free all American and Israeli hostages, not shower Hamas with money,” DeSantis tweeted Tuesday.
The Biden Administration has not provided details on how the funds will be safeguarded for their intended use.