Senator Calls for Sanctioning UN Aid Agency

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., urged the Biden administration last week to impose “terrorism sanctions” on the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), citing the humanitarian aid agency’s ties to Hamas.

In a letter to President Joe Biden, Cotton said the administration should label UNRWA as a specially designated global terrorist entity to allow it to sanction the agency and block its assets. He said the “evidence for UNRWA’s complicity in Hamas’s terrorist activity is overwhelming” and includes the participation of agency employees in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, as well as the discovery of weapons stashes in UNRWA facilities and tunnel shafts around and under those facilities.

The White House and UNRWA had no immediate comment on Cotton's letter.