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This week in Australian foreign affairs: joint statement on Houthi attacks, Wong in Jordan, Israel, Occupied Palestinian Territories, humanitarian assistance gets a boost, and more.

"Humanitarian assistance is part and parcel of the war machine," said one observer. It is used by the various factions as a political weapon against opponents.

This week in Australian foreign affairs: Fijian PM visits, Lithuanian President in Canberra, Marles in Korea and Japan for Defence Ministers' Meetings, $10 million in humanitarian assistance for Gaza, and more.

More than eight million people require humanitarian assistance in Nigeria. In a bid to save civilians in one of the longest-running conflicts in West Africa, training is underway to prepare the next generation of Nigerian war surgeons.

The unclassified version of Australia's defence strategic review only mentions peacekeeping directly twice. It refers to Australia's 'enviable international reputation as a capable country in military, peacekeeping, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations' and ...

With Azerbaijan now attacking American interests within the sovereign territory of Armenia, it is now time for the Biden administration to revoke the waiver on Section 907 and immediately cease all military and other non-humanitarian assistance to Azerbaijan.
The post Azerbaijan's Attack on American Company Should End Sanctions Waiver appeared first on American Enterprise Institute - AEI.

The 35-year-long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed enclave wedged between the two countries, appears to have been settled in Azerbaijan's favor as President Ilham Aliyev raised the country's flag over the region's former de facto capital. While officials in Azerbaijan celebrated a political victory after conducting an "anti-terrorist operation" on September 19 against Karabakh Armenian military units, more than 100,000 Armenians have since been forced to leave their homes for the neighboring Republic of Armenia. Baku's actions and threats thus far should be reason enough for Washington to end the military assistance it has provided Azerbaijan over previous decades. In fact, it should have ended assistance years ago.During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, Washington committed to prohibiting aid to Azerbaijan through Section 907 of the 1992 Freedom Support Act. However, following Azerbaijan's pledge to cooperate with President George W. Bush's global war on terrorism following the attacks on 9/11, Congress approved a process to waive Section 907 in 2002; this has occurred each year since. From 2002 to 2020, the Departments of State and Defense (DOD) reported providing about $164 million for security assistance to the government of Azerbaijan.All waivers of Section 907 should have ended in 2020 as Azerbaijan initiated the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. Military equipment, potentially sent by Washington, is being used by Azerbaijan to satiate its territorial aspirations, not the intended purpose of supporting U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Azerbaijan also explicitly violated the condition of the waiver requiring that Baku "will not undermine or hamper ongoing efforts to negotiate a peaceful settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan or be used for offensive purposes against Armenia."Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reportedly stated that the U.S. State Department will not renew a long-standing waiver for military assistance. Secretary Blinken's statement was likely the result of lawmakers who have pushed for ending this military assistance, such as Senators Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and others who have sponsored the Armenian Protection Act of 2023. This bill would effectively repeal the Section 907 waiver. Adopting such a bill would be a positive development, as Azerbaijan considers further aggression against Armenia's internationally recognized territory. Domestic rhetoric by Aliyev is most important in understanding the potential of Azerbaijani foreign policy ambitions. President Aliyev has previously threatened to use force to establish a "corridor" through southern Armenia connecting mainland Azerbaijan with the Autonomous Nakhchivan Republic. "The Zangezur Corridor is a historical necessity," Aliyev said in January 2023, "It will happen whether Armenia wants it or not." Azerbaijan and Turkey are particularly interested in linking this route with the already expansive "Middle Corridor" to directly connect the two countries rather than the current path through Georgia. Days after the offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh, Aliyev held talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Nakhchivan regarding the Zangezur Corridor, hinting at creating a land bridge between their two countries through Armenia. If Azerbaijan (and, by extension, Turkey) established a link by force across Armenia's territory, it would clearly violate Armenian sovereignty and territorial integrity, the exact tenets that Brussels and Washington have sought to defend in Ukraine and uphold through the so-called rules-based order. For Armenia, such a development would deprive it of a land border with Iran, one of its key regional allies and trading partners.As such, Armenia is vehemently opposed to the idea of a corridor through its territory that is not under its direct jurisdiction. Article 9 of the 2020 ceasefire statement includes a provision committing Armenia to "guarantee the security" of transportation connections between Azerbaijan's mainland and Nakhchivan. However, both sides have accused each other of violating this agreement. Additionally, the stipulation that "control over transport communication is carried out by the bodies of the Border Guard Service of the FSB of Russia" appears unlikely as Moscow did not do much of anything to stop clashes over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2022 or Azerbaijan's offensive in September 2023. As a result, Armenians have lost significant trust in Moscow's ability to provide security to Armenia despite being a mutual security partner in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).Iran also has qualms with the prospect of Azerbaijan and Turkey occupying Armenian territory and creating the Zangezur Corridor by force. Tehran has said that it opposes "geopolitical" changes in the South Caucasus. Specifically, Iran is deeply concerned about Israeli influence in Azerbaijan. Baku received high-tech drones and other weapons from Israel, which after Russia, was the second-largest arms supplier to Azerbaijan from 2011 to 2020. On top of military hardware, Tehran worries that Azerbaijan, over time, has become a hub for Israeli intelligence and surveillance. Due to Israel's military and intelligence cooperation with Azerbaijan, Iran sees this as Israel expanding its presence in the South Caucasus. On the surface, Russia may appear indifferent to the creation of a Zangezur Corridor, as Russia does not share Iran's threat perceptions of Israel. This may be shortsighted. If Azerbaijan and Turkey take the Zangezur Corridor through military means, it could spiral into a larger-scale war between Tehran and Ankara. Despite the limited interests of the United States in the South Caucasus, facilitating cooperation with Baku and Yerevan to peacefully coordinate trade routes could serve to avoid a future war on Europe's periphery.While stopping American military support will not necessarily inhibit Azerbaijan's current aggression from occurring — Israel and Turkey provide most of its military hardware — it will remove American complicity.Refusing to provide another waiver to Section 907 is the right thing to do, as Azerbaijan's use of military force clearly does not serve U.S. interests since it has led to a humanitarian crisis affecting over 100,000 Armenian civilians and could spark a middle-power conflict on the periphery of Europe. Baku will inevitably push back on this decision, but it will serve the United States well to resist external pressure and abide by consistent and fair rules and laws.

Gayle Smith is the president and CEO of the ONE Campaign and the former administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). She joins David to talk about her two decades spent in Africa as a young journalist and NGO worker, insights from her career in global development and humanitarian assistance, efforts to combat the Ebola epidemic in the Obama administration, and more.
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Since UNRWA preemptively disclosed Israel's claim to have evidence that 12 UNRWA employees participated in the 7 October 2023 attacks, at least 16 donor states and the European Union, which collectively supply the vast majority of the Agency's budget, have suspended their contributions. This poses an existential threat to UNRWA, the largest provider of humanitarian assistance in Gaza. This post explains how the current episode displays the unsatisfactory sui generis status of UNRWA's Palestinian staff, and forms part of an ongoing and largely successful attempt to position UNRWA as a compromised, sui generis UN organisation which constitutes an outlier in the law and practice of the United Nations.

The State Department said on Monday that it has found no evidence that Israel is violating a recent directive that recipients of U.S. military aid comply with international human rights law.In February, partly due to pressure over support for Israel's war on Gaza, the Biden administration issued a national security memo that required any country receiving military aid from Washington while participating in an active armed conflict, to issue "credible and reliable written assurances" that they will use weapons funded by the U.S. in accordance with international law, and that they "the recipient country will facilitate and not arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance and United States Government-supported international efforts to provide humanitarian assistance."Sunday was the deadline for Israel, along with the six other countries deemed to meet the criteria — Colombia, Iraq, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia and Ukraine — to issue these assurances. "For these seven countries (...) we have received written assurances that are required in the memo," State Department spokesman Matt Miller said during a press briefing on Monday. "In each case, these assurances were made by a credible, high-level official in the partner government who has the ability and authority to make decisions and commitments about the issues at the heart of the assurances." "We've had ongoing assessments of Israel's compliance with international humanitarian law," Miller added. "We have not found them to be in violation, either when it comes to the conduct of the war or the provision of humanitarian assistance. We view those assurances through that ongoing work we have done." The announcement came shortly after the U.S. abstained from a resolution that demands an immediate ceasefire in Gaza — the first sign of public disagreement between Washington and Tel Aviv. The Biden administration will now have 90 days to provide Congress with a report on whether the Israeli government has abided by its assurances.This determination by the administration comes despite recent opposition from progressives in Congress to rule that the Israeli government's assurances were credible."The current circumstances on the ground in Gaza, the many statements made by the President and other senior Administration officials, and the recent IPC assessment that:'famine is imminent' – make it abundantly clear that Netanyahu's government is not doing nearly enough to allow aid to reach starving and otherwise desperate people in Gaza," 17 senators wrote the White House on March 22. "As a result, we believe it would be inconsistent with the letter and spirit of NSM-20 to find that assurances made by the Netanyahu Government meet the required 'credible and reliable' standard at this time. Such a determination would also establish an unacceptable precedent for the application of NSM-20 in other situations around the world."The letter's signatories included Sens. Chris van Hollen (D-Md.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)Six House Democrats made a similar case in a letter sent on March 23. "[T]he Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has restricted the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza by placing onerous burdens on the oversight of aid, severely limiting entry points for aid delivery, and arbitrarily preventing food, medicine, and other supplies from entering Gaza," wrote Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine). "Given the catastrophic and devolving humanitarian situation in Gaza, we urge you to enforce the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act (Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act) and, as required by that law, make clear to the Israeli government that so long as Israel continues to restrict the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the continued provision of U.S. security assistance to Israel would constitute a violation of existing U.S. law and must be restricted." The determinations match with assessments made with leading humanitarian organizations and human rights groups.Miller maintained that the current assessment was part of an ongoing process that "requires a fact-intensive analysis of relevant factors related to international humanitarian law," but that "as of yet, we have not made a conclusion that Israel is in violation of international humanitarian law."Reports last week suggested that officials at the State Department and USAID had expressed "deep skepticism" over ambassador to Israel Jack Lew's assertion that Israel's claims of compliance with international law were credible.

USAID administrator Samantha Power presented a bleak picture of the humanitarian situation in Gaza and international efforts to alleviate it during a Senate hearing on Tuesday, prompting some senators to question whether Israel's conduct during the war was in compliance with U.S. law. Power was testifying in front of the Senate Appropriation subcommittee State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs to discuss her agency's budget for the upcoming fiscal year. But a majority of senators — all but one of whom were Democrats — focused their questions largely on the crisis in Gaza. Power said that according to many aid workers that she met in Israel last month, this was the worst humanitarian catastrophe that they had experienced in their careers. "Unprecedented was the word they used," she said.During her remarks, Power noted that nearly the entire population is living under the threat of famine, ,that Israel has not done enough to facilitate necessary humanitarian access into Gaza, and that aid workers in Gaza were not able to do their work safely or reliably."Right now, the inability to get to the north in a sustained way has limited our ability to provide ready-to-use therapeutic food," she said."I think that is a stunning statement," replied Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) "We know children are starving to death. And the most fundamental, life-saving substance that we can transport to this country, we cannot get to the most serious areas."In recent weeks, the Biden administration has maintained that it has no evidence that Israel has violated international law as it prosecutes its war in Gaza, including with respect to the provision of humanitarian assistance."I think it's essential that those who are responsible in the department for the delivery of humanitarian aid have a strong voice within that process," said Sen. Chris van Hollen (D-Md.), referring to a report that the Biden administration must submit to Congress in early May on whether or not Israel is complying with international law. "One of the key factors of [National Security Memorandum] 20, as you know, is whether a recipient of U.S. military assistance is facilitating and not arbitrarily restricting the delivery of humanitarian assistance." As Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) pointed out, Section 620I of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act also prohibits the U.S. from providing military assistance to states impeding the delivery of humanitarian aid. Power declined to answer Merkley's question about whether she or others in the Biden administration had advocated the president to invoke 620I to cut off military aid for Israel. Following a phone call between Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week in the aftermath of the IDF strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen staffers, Tel Aviv has taken small steps to increase the flow of humanitarian aid. Israel opened three aid corridors and the number of trucks allowed into Gaza has increased from under 100 per day, according to Power, to 433 on Tuesday."It should not have taken the death of foreign aid workers to get the world to really say, enough is enough," said Van Hollen.Additionally, according to the Maryland senator, these changes also demonstrate that Israel was restricting humanitarian aid prior to this week. In February, following the International Court of Justice's ruling that Israel had to do more to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International accused Israel of defying the ruling and blocking the passage of sufficient aid. "I'm glad to see the Netanyahu government say it's going to open the Erez crossing. This is something those of us on this committee who are here right now have been calling for for months. as has the president," he said. "I'm glad to see over 400 trucks cross into Gaza yesterday. To my mind, it has been possible all along."Power will continue to speak about the USAID budget this week, testifying in front of both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations committee on Wednesday, where she is sure to face more questions about the crisis in Gaza.

The Biden administration's policy toward Gaza has come under increased pressure from Democrats on Capitol Hill. When Congress returns from a two-week recess on Monday, these members will have an opportunity to follow through on the sternly-worded letters and statements they have issued in recent weeks.Despite an apparent shift in tone following the Israeli strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen staff last week, the Biden administration maintains that Israel is complying with international law — both in its war conduct and in its provision of humanitarian assistance. As a result, Washington continues to send weapons to Tel Aviv unimpeded. In March, The Washington Post reported that the Biden administration had greenlit more than 100 weapons packages for Israel that fell under the $25 million threshold that would necessitate that it notify Congress. Since then, the administration has continued to sign off on weapons packages, including as recently as the day of the strikes that killed the WCK staff. The Biden administration is also reportedly close to approving an $18 billion arms package to Israel that would include as many as 50 F-15 fighter jets. While the delivery of the jets would not be immediate — one unnamed U.S. official told Al-Jazeera that even if the approval process were completed as soon as possible, the aircraft would not be delivered until 2029 — the announcement of such a large weapons package could provide Congress with a rare opportunity to debate arms transfer policy in public.The $18 billion package would mark the largest sale to Israel since the start of the war in October. It is difficult for Congress to block an arms transfer. Any legislative vehicle used to halt the sale would require a veto-proof majority in both chambers. Congress has never successfully blocked a sale under either the Arms Export Control Act or a Joint Resolution of Disapproval. But a large number of Democratic members have expressed disapproval or concern over continuing to provide Israel with weapons as it prosecutes its war. On March 11, Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) sent a letter to Biden describing how the Israeli government has interfered with humanitarian operations. The senators reminded the administration that under U.S. law, the president "should not provide military assistance to any country that interferes with U.S. humanitarian assistance." In the House, Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) circulated a letter last Friday that called on the president to "reconsider [his] recent decision to authorize the transfer of a new arms package to Israel, and to withhold this and any future offensive arms transfers until a full investigation into the airstrike [that killed the WCK staff] is completed." The letter also called on the suspension of weapons transfers if Israel fails to make changes to mitigate civilian harm in Gaza. By the end of the day on Friday, 37 other members had signed on to the letter, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).The looming debate over the sale of the F-15 package could allow these members the opportunity to follow through on their words. RS reached out to the offices of each of the Senators to see if they would pursue legislation that would halt arms sales to Israel. None responded (though Van Hollen told Politico that he was "strongly considering" a variety of options to place conditions on aid, and Warren said on CNN on Thursday that it was "clear that Congress has a responsibility to act. We have legal tools here. And as I said, we cannot approve the sale of arms to a country that is in violation of our own laws on this.")Sanders in January introduced a resolution that would have forced the State Department to issue a report detailing whether Israel was using weapons provided by Washington to commit human rights violations. The resolution failed in the Senate by a vote of 72-11. As Stephen Semler of Security Policy Reform Institute has documented, all the senators who signed the letter, with the exception of Sanders, voted on March 23 for a spending package that included a total of $3.8 billion in military aid for Israel and cut off all U.S. funding for UNRWA, the U.N. agency which performs vital humanitarian work in Gaza. "That this bill passed with overwhelming Democratic support belies the party's increasingly vocal criticisms of Israel's behavior and expressed concern for compliance with US and international law," Semler wrote in Jacobin following the vote.

On October 10, the State Department announced that it had finally determined that the July 26 military takeover in Niger constituted a coup. The State Department further said that in accordance with Section 7008 of the annual State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs appropriations legislation, the United States would be suspending some $200 in military and development aid — while preserving "our life-saving humanitarian, food, and health assistance to benefit the people of Niger." These suspensions confirm and extend an initial pause in some assistance in the immediate wake of the coup.This legal determination and the ensuing aid suspension were the correct decisions. The suspension will hopefully send the message that Washington will not, at least in the case of Niger, ruthlessly prioritize exaggerated "strategic interests" over the immediate choice of whether to treat coup-makers as legitimate. That message is important both in Africa, where Washington was already grossly inconsistent in responding to a recent wave of coups, and beyond.The "strategic interests" in question are summarized in the New York Times' reporting on the Biden administration's internal debate about a coup determination for Niger: "U.S. officials worry it could also reduce America's leverage over Niger's future, jeopardize military operations against militants in the region, invite Russian influence and exacerbate humanitarian suffering in one of the world's poorest countries."Taking the arguments one by one, the coup itself shows how limited American "leverage" was before the coup, and there is little reason to expect that normalizing relations with the junta would generate meaningful leverage beyond continued military training and expenditures. U.S. allies that receive a pass on coups, notably Egypt, have not proven amenable to making serious reforms on democracy or human rights.Second, in terms of counterterrorism, I am unaware of measurable, publicly available evidence showing that America's vast counterterrorism expenditures and training missions in Niger or the wider Sahel have produced tangible security benefits for ordinary people. American surveillance and logistical support assisted in French-led missions against top jihadist leaders, but violence worsened anyway. And now the French have largely been expelled from the core zone of jihadist activity in the region, the central Sahelian countries of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, so the prospects for an effective American support role are less. One can always argue that the situation would be worse without the American presence, but such counterfactuals are difficult to prove or disprove.Third, giving juntas a pass doesn't necessarily prevent them from turning to Russia. France attempted to hang on to its influence in Mali after the coup there in 2020 (the first of the recent wave of coups), but found its relations with the junta degrading after the soldiers' intentions to remain in power became more manifest through a "follow-on coup" in 2021. More broadly, the U.S. does not appear particularly skilled at playing great power politics in Africa writ large. Washington relies on senior officials' visits and a liberal dose of scolding in its attempts to woo African governments, and even long-time allies often respond by keeping the door open to the U.S., Russia, and China all at once. Moreover, fears of hypothetical Russian influence shouldn't be a pretext for compromising on what are supposed to be core American values.Fourth, given that there are carve-outs for humanitarian aid under Section 7008, it does not make sense that suspending military assistance would worsen humanitarian conditions in Niger, which are certainly dire. I have argued previously, in fact, that focusing on the delivery of humanitarian assistance across the entire Sahel would make the U.S. role there clearer and more straightforward, both to the people of the region and within Washington.One could make a complex and circuitous argument that U.S. counterterrorism strikes or U.S. support for other militaries' counterterrorism ventures are essential to ultimately resolving the conflict and therefore improving Sahelians' humanitarian conditions. Yet this argument was not borne out over the past decade when, as noted above, insecurity (and displacement) surged despite a significant U.S. military presence.Now that the coup declaration has been made, the Biden administration should avoid the temptations of either giving Niger a waiver (a possibility under the Section 7008 language) or accepting a flawed election as sufficient to allow the resumption of military assistance. Next year may see the beginning of a new phase in the region's pattern of military government, as promises to hold elections come due in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Chad. The timetable has already begun to slip in Mali, which in itself should draw a U.S. rebuke. Whenever elections do occur, moreover, there is a high likelihood that the votes will proceed on terms dictated by juntas, who may either run their own members or attempt to use civilians as pawns.The U.S. should scrutinize those elections carefully. Indeed, Western powers' decision to overlook gross electoral intimidation and tampering in Sahelian countries was among the factors that contributed to the recent coups, which took advantage of civilian politicians' weak legitimacy. The coup declaration in Niger should be the beginning and not the end, then, of a less compromising stance from Washington vis-à-vis both coups themselves and coup-makers' political machinations in the Sahel.

A statement urging an end to internet shutdowns in Sudan. These shutdowns violate international law, exacerbating humanitarian crises, hindering emergency assistance, and impeding communication with loved ones.

Israel's finance minister has blocked a major U.S. shipment of humanitarian aid meant to feed Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to Axios, setting up a faceoff with the Biden administration, which has come under increasing pressure from Democrats in Congress to increase the flow of aid into the besieged territory.
The news comes just days after President Joe Biden issued a memorandum in which he committed to enforce a little-used provision of U.S. law that bans Washington from giving security assistance to states that block U.S. humanitarian aid. The memorandum drew heavily on a proposal from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) that called for the implementation of U.S. law restricting military aid for human rights violators.
Biden now finds himself in a bind: He can ignore the memo and anger his allies in the Senate; cut off military aid to Israel; or issue a waiver that would allow shipments to continue while conceding that Israeli actions are contrary to U.S. law.
"The most likely possibility is that the president says, 'Yes, there's been a restriction, but because of the importance of supporting Israel, we're going to waive,'" said John Ramming Chappell, an advocacy and legal fellow at the Center for Civilians in Conflict. A waiver, Ramming Chappell argues, "would require being honest about the fact that the Israeli government is restricting the delivery of humanitarian assistance."
Such an admission would be embarrassing for the administration given its repeated declarations that it has not seen credible allegations of Israeli war crimes, a view at odds with the assessment of all major human rights organizations and even U.S. allies.
"If you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people having been killed," charged European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Monday, following Biden's comment that Israeli operations have been "over the top."
As Israel faces charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice, the Biden administration is reportedly conducting internal reviews of Israel's compliance with the laws of war, an important question given the scale of U.S. military aid to the country.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment from RS. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said yesterday that "the Israeli government made a commitment to allow the flour to go in, and we expect them to implement this commitment."
The flour in the shipment, which is currently sitting in the Israeli port of Ashdod, would be sufficient to feed 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza for five months, according to Miller. United Nations experts estimate that one in four Gazans is now experiencing extreme famine conditions, indicating widespread starvation.
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's finance minister, reportedly blocked the U.S. humanitarian aid because it was destined for distribution by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA. Israeli officials recently accused a dozen of UNRWA's 10,000 Gaza-based employees of participating in or facilitating the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, which killed nearly 1,200 people, most of whom were civilians.
While Israel has yet to provide evidence for the accusations, many countries, including the U.S. and Germany, have paused funding for the U.N. agency pending an investigation. UNRWA, for its part, has cut ties with the accused employees and urged states to reverse course on funding cutoffs. The agency says a continued suspension of funding could have catastrophic consequences in Gaza, which is already facing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Smotrich's office told Axios that he is now looking for a mechanism to deliver the aid without going through UNRWA, which he alleges is part of the "Hamas war machine."
The decision to hold up aid throws another wrench into the Biden administration's efforts to pass a funding package that includes billions of dollars in assistance for Ukraine and Israel. The package made it through the Senate Tuesday, but its odds of passing the House continue to dwindle due to progressive opposition to Israel aid and conservative opposition to Ukraine aid.
In a House hearing Wednesday, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) asked Bonnie Jenkins, a top State Department official on arms control, if the new memorandum would be applied to Israel.
"It's going to be applied to all countries," Jenkins said. "We have talked to Israel about the NSM, and they are aware of it and agreed to it."
But Jenkins punted when asked if the U.S. had secured assurances from Israel that it will allow the provision of U.S. humanitarian aid to Gaza, noting that the memorandum allowed up to 45 days for a state to provide such assurances if it is actively at war.