Activists Disrupt Hearing on UNRWA ‘Failures’

Protesters disrupted a House committee hearing on the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) on January 30, following the US’s temporary defunding of the agency amid allegations some of its staff participated in the October 7 attack on Israel.

The activist group CODEPINK said five people were arrested at the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing titled “UNRWA Exposed: Examining the Agency’s Mission and Failures.”

The US State Department announced that it had “temporarily paused additional funding for UNRWA” following allegations that 12 of its employees were involved in the October 7 Hamas attack.

The agency said it “immediately terminate[d] the contracts of these staff members and launch[ed] an investigation in order to establish the truth without delay.”

A senior Israeli official said the Israeli government opposed the “immediate discontinuation of UNRWA” as it “could cause a humanitarian catastrophe that would force Israel to halt its fighting against Hamas.”

This footage was released by CODEPINK, and shows activists being detained at the hearing.

Ann Wright, a retired army colonel State Department official, is one of the protesters seen being detained in the footage. She says: “The Biden administration is complicit in genocide. It is killing people just as the Israelis are. It’s our weapons. It’s our money, it’s our money that’s doing this.”

The co-founder of CODEPINK, Medea Benjamin, who participated in the protest, said, “UNRWA is the lifeline for people who are starving; cutting its funding is just inhumane.” Credit: CODEPINK via Storyful