US reverses itself, saying UN’s Gaza agency can be sued in New York

WASHINGTON – Reversing a Biden administration position, US President Donald Trump’s Justice Department argued that a lawsuit could proceed in New York City that accuses a United Nations agency of providing more than US$1 billion (S$1.32 billion) that helped to enable Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

The lawsuit says the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)

allowed Hamas to siphon off the organisation’s funds

to help build a terrorist infrastructure that included tunnelling equipment and weapons that supported the attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and roughly 250 were taken hostage.

The Biden administration argued in 2024 that UNRWA could not be sued because it was part of the United Nations, which enjoys immunity from such lawsuits.

But the Justice Department told a federal judge in Manhattan on April 24 that neither UNRWA nor the agency officials named in the lawsuit were entitled to immunity.

“The complaint in this case alleges atrocious conduct on the part of UNRWA and its officers,” the department wrote in a letter to Judge Analisa Torres of US District Court. “The government believes they must answer these allegations in American courts.”

UNRWA has been a backbone of humanitarian aid delivery to the two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The US government is not involved in the case against the agency, but the Justice Department, in instances in which it sees a federal interest, can make its views known in private lawsuits.

The Trump administration has closely allied itself with the war aims of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, whose government has moved to ban the agency’s operations in its territory.

The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, was brought on behalf of about 100 Israeli plaintiffs. The suit says UNRWA and current and former agency officials aided and abetted Hamas in building up its terror infrastructure and the personnel necessary to carry out the Oct 7 attack.

Ms Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the agency, said it had seen the department’s letter, which she said had reversed the US government’s “long-standing recognition that UNRWA is a subsidiary body of the General Assembly and an integral part of the United Nations, entitled to immunity from legal process under the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations”.

She added that UNRWA, through its lawyers, would continue to set out the basis for its position in the court. NYTIMES