John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com

The U.S. State Department paused U.S. aid to the United Nations Relief Works Agency on Friday, Jan. 26 after accusations by Israel that a dozen UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. At least 17 other donor nations have also suspended their funding to the agency, according to the group U.N. Watch. It seems that the United States is demonstrating a penchant for collective punishment by threatening humanitarian aid to Palestinians who are without food and shelter as a result of the war between Israel and Gaza.

The U.N. Relief Works Agency was created soon after the 1948 Nakba to meet the immediate needs of the Palestinian refugees who had their homes taken or destroyed by the Israeli army. The service of this agency was limited to Palestinian refugees. Its funding was to be raised separately from the funding of the United Nations itself, and its functions were specified to be temporary until the return of the refugees to their homes. Both Israel and the United States were very involved in and supportive of setting up this organization.

There are 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza, mostly Palestinians. It is the second largest employer in Gaza. Because of the alleged independent actions of 12 or fewer employees, the work of the only potentially effective aid agency in Gaza will lose its ability to fulfill its mandate to meet the needs of 85% of Gazan residents who have lost their homes and over 500,000 Palestinians without food.

Also, UNRWA runs refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and the West Bank. It has three major areas of service: education (through UNRWA schools), health (through its clinics), and social services. Most of the 30,000 employees are themselves Palestinian refugees. Today, UNRWA serves about 5.7 million Palestinian refugees. In Gaza, it is the second largest employer, with 13,000 employees, 153 of whom have been killed by Israel, and the agency is housing over a million people in 154 installations in which internally displaced refugees are housed.

Human rights groups and progressive Democrats in Congress have denounced the withholding of financial aid to UNRWA, saying that it will deprive innocent Palestinians of desperately needed aid. However, there are also other factors to consider. One is the questionable credibility of Israel’s report that the fewer than 10 UNRWA employees, who may have joined Hamas forces in Israel, were doing it with the support of UNRWA. It is much more likely, given the mission of the U.N. Agency, that any employees supporting Hamas were acting for their own private reasons, unconnected to their employment.

Another factor to consider is the reason for choosing to withhold humanitarian aid from Palestinians. It seems, the U.S. does not want to be perceived as supporting the actions of 10 alleged Hamas supports who work for UNRWA. Yet, at the same time giving billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, whose army fighting in Gaza has killed over 25,000 Palestinians, wounded 60,000, displaced 85% of Gazan residents, and left over 500,000 without food. It would seem that the U.S. State Department devalues Palestinian lives by withholding humanitarian aid and, at the same time, being complicit with the actions of the Israel military in Gaza.

We live in a country that espouses the ideal of becoming a land where the well-being of all humans is a priority. U.S. actions concerning the Israeli/Gazan war undermine this value.

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Imagine one day in the life of a Palestinian refugee: the powerlessness, the hunger, without a home, without a destination, watching family and friends in despair and death. Even one more day is unconscionable. The United States State Department must immediately restore its financial commitment to the United Nations Relief Works Agency. And the U.S. must withhold all military aid to Israel until the war ends and until there is an end to attempts to force the Palestinians from the land, from the river to the sea.

And finally, our nation might consider supporting Norway, one of the European countries that did not suspend its contributions to UNRWA and who has just nominated UNRWA for the Nobel Peace Prize for their heroic humanitarian work.