Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) ripped into Israel’s allegations that the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency, commonly referred to as UNRWA, is a proxy for the Palestinian militant group Hamas, arguing the accusations are an attempt by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to eliminate the agency.

“There’s no doubt that the claim that Prime Minister Netanyahu and others are making, that somehow UNRWA is a proxy for Hamas, are just flat-out lies,” Van Hollen said Sunday in an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.” “If you look at the person who’s in charge of operations on the ground for UNRWA, it’s about a 20-year U.S. Army veteran. You can be sure he’s not in cahoots with Hamas.”

UNRWA came under scrutiny earlier this year after Israel claimed 12 of the agency’s employees participated in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Hamas, a Palestinian militant group that has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel in a surprise assault. More than 240 people were taken hostage, and more than 100 are believed to still be held captive.

No substantial evidence has been presented to support these allegations, though UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini earlier this month said “serious action” was taken nonetheless, including the termination of the alleged members’ contracts.

“Netanyahu has wanted to get rid of UNRWA since at least 2017. That’s been his goal, not just in Gaza, but also in the other places you talked about,” Van Hollen said.

CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan further pressed the senator on why he believes Netanyahu is trying to end UNRWA and pointed out the agency is one of the biggest distributors of aid in Gaza.

“Well, that’s exactly right. And there have been allegations made by the Netanyahu government that up to 14 of those 13,000 people were involved in the horrific Oct. 7 attacks,” he said. “We should investigate it, we should hold all those people accountable. But … let’s not hold 2 million innocent Palestinian civilians who are dying of starvation, let’s not hold them, essentially, accountable for the bad acts of 14 people.”

Van Hollen further argued Netanyahu wants to dismantle UNRWA because he sees “them as a means to continue the hopes of the Palestinian people for a homeland of their own. And he has been opposed to a two-state solution. And this has been his primary objective, stopping a two-state solution.”

The U.S., along with nearly a dozen other nations, has paused funding to the agency in the wake of the allegations. UNRWA at the time said it has a strict policy of “neutrality,” while recognizing the challenging circumstances in Gaza due to Hamas’s rule.

Republicans in Congress have heightened calls to block further funding to the agency, while Democrats have both acknowledged the gravity of the accusation and also stressed the allegation applies to a very small fraction of the more than 30,000 employees of the agency. The U.S. funds UNRWA through an account covered by the annual State Department funding bill, which is due on May 22.

Van Hollen warned of the wide-reaching impacts of cutting UNRWA funding in Gaza, which has largely been devastated by Israel’s bombardment following the Oct. 7 attacks.

“And if you get rid of UNRWA in Gaza today, it is the primary distribution system for food and aid. So if you cut off funding for UNRWA and Gaza entirely, it means more people will starve, more people won’t get the medical assistance they need. And so it would be a huge mistake to cut them off,” he said.

The Maryland Democrat was among a group of Senators last week to demand President Biden comply with the Foreign Assistance Act and cut off military aid to Israel. The senators argued Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act requires the Biden administration to stop the sale and transfer of weapons to Israel if Netanyahu’s government continues to block humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

Top senator calls on Biden to ‘use all levers’ to pressure Israel over Gaza

Internally displaced Palestinians gather to collect food aid in Rafah on Friday.

Joe Biden should use his leverage and the law to pressure Israel to change how it is prosecuting the war in Gaza, the Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen said.

Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, is among a group of senators urging Biden to stop providing Israel with offensive weapons until it lifts restrictions on the delivery of food and medicine into Gaza, where children are now dying of hunger and famine looms.

“We need the president and the Biden administration to push harder and to use all the levers of US policy to ensure people don’t die of starvation,” Van Hollen said in an interview on Friday.

This week, Van Hollen and seven of his colleagues sent a letter to the president arguing that Israel was in violation of the Foreign Assistance Act, a section of which prohibits the sale and transfer of military weapons to any nation that restricts the delivery of US aid.

Their call comes as the administration faces mounting domestic and international pressure over what critics have described as an “absurd” and “inherent contradiction” at the heart of US policy on Israel’s war against Hamas: while the US attempts to ease the deepening humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s military campaign in the Palestinian territory, it continues to arm the country.

In a sign of the widening rift between Israel and its most important ally, Van Hollen said Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was openly defying Biden’s pleas that Israel do more to protect civilians in Gaza and work toward a long-term solution to the conflict that includes the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has been an obstacle to the president’s efforts to at least create some light at the end of this very dark tunnel,” Van Hollen said.

In recent weeks, Biden has escalated his criticism of Israel’s military offensive, saying last weekend that Netanyahu was “hurting” his country’s standing by failing to prevent more civilian deaths in Gaza. But the US president has so far resisted Democrats’ calls to leverage future military aid as a means of reining in Israel’s conduct in the war.

The United Nations warned last month that more than a quarter of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza face “catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation”. It said without action, widespread famine would be “almost inevitable”. Israel’s military campaign, which came in retaliation for the Hamas attack on 7 October that killed about 1,200 people, has devastated Gaza and killed more than 30,000 people, most of them civilians.

With the prospects of a truce elusive and far too little aid trickling in, Biden has authorized airdrops and the construction of a maritime corridor to deliver desperately needed food and medicine to the Palestinian people living in the besieged territory. But critics say those methods are less effective, less efficient and more dangerous than the unhindered delivery of supplies by land.

“The very fact that the United States is airlifting humanitarian supplies and is now going to be opening a temporary port is a symptom of the larger problem, which is [that] the Netanyahu government has restricted the amount of aid coming into Gaza and the safe distribution of aid within Gaza,” Van Hollen said.

Israel, which tightened its already strict controls on access to the enclave after 7 October, has denied that it is impeding the flow of aid.

Amid intensifying international pressure, Israel said this week it would expand the amount of supplies into the country. A small convoy of six trucks, coordinated by the Israeli military, brought humanitarian aid directly into the isolated northern Gaza earlier this week. Separately, an aid ship loaded with 200 tons of rice, flour, chicken and other items arrived in Gaza on Friday, in the first test of a new sea route.

But that is a far cry from what is needed, humanitarian workers say. Before the five-month-old conflict began, roughly 500 truckloads of humanitarian aid per day crossed into the territory. Now the number is far less, sometimes peaking above 200 trucks per day but often well below, according to UN figures.

Van Hollen’s insistence that the US do more to push Israel on humanitarian aid was informed by his visit to the Rafah crossing from Egypt in January, and the onerous Israeli inspection process he witnessed.

“You witnessed these very, very long lines of trucks trying to get in through Rafah and through the Kerem Shalom crossing, and quite an inspection review, including arbitrary denials of humanitarian aid being delivered into Gaza, which just makes the process even more cumbersome,” he said.

“For example, we visited a warehouse in Rafah that was filled with goods that had been rejected at the inspection sites. The rejected goods included things like maternity kits, included things like water purification systems.”

Van Hollen said no specific reason was given as to why the items were rejected, but said Israel has broadly claimed that they could be considered “dual use” or having a civilian or military purpose. The maternity kit, Van Hollen said, contained a “teeny little scalpel” that he speculated was the reason the package was turned back.

Across the border in Gaza, the situation is dire. UN agencies have estimated that 180 women give birth every day, sometimes without access to adequate pain medication, food or hygiene products. Malnourished, dehydrated and increasingly anemic, many pregnant women in Gaza face elevated risks of postpartum hemorrhaging.

Another problem, Van Hollen said, is that so many of the people delivering aid or accompanying the aid convoys have been killed, making coordination and distribution of the aid that does enter difficult.

Netanyahu and his government, the senator said, “need to open more crossings, they need to end the arbitrary rejection of goods like maternity kits and solar powered desalinization units, and they need to make sure that food can be safely delivered within Gaza without people getting killed.”

Van Hollen’s comments came the day after Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the US and a longtime ally of Israel’s, was unsparing in a speech in which he declared that Netanyahu had “lost his way”, and urged Israelis to hold elections to replace him. Biden, who has been increasingly open about his frustration with Netanyahu, called it a “good speech”.

Van Hollen called Schumer’s speech an “important moment” that made clear the US believes “there needs to be a change in course” in the way Israel is conducting the war.

‘The administration will have to decide’

In the letter to Biden earlier this week, Van Hollen and his colleagues wrote: “According to public reporting and your own statements, the Netanyahu government is in violation of [the Foreign Assistance Act]. Given this reality, we urge you to make it clear to the Netanyahu government that failure to immediately and dramatically expand humanitarian access and facilitate safe aid deliveries throughout Gaza will lead to serious consequences, as specified under existing US law.”

Van Hollen also argued that the Israeli government is “not in compliance” with a national security memorandum (NSM 20) issued by the president last month that requires any country that receives US military assistance to provide written assurances it will “not arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede” the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Israel reportedly provided that commitment in a letter to Biden signed by Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday, according to Axios. Van Hollen said the onus is now on the US to assess the credibility of Israel’s assurances.

“Part of that evaluation will depend on what’s happening on the ground right now, and their assessment of whether or not, in fact, the Netanyahu government is meeting that requirement,” he said. “And if the signatures and commitments are found to be lacking, then the administration cannot provide military assistance until they determine that they’re credible.”

Van Hollen stressed that enforcing the statute would not prevent the US from continuing to send defensive military assistance to protect Israeli citizens from rocket attacks, such as the Iron Dome.

The memorandum was issued last month, after Van Hollen and more than a dozen Democratic senators introduced an amendment to a wartime aid package that included military assistance for Ukraine, Israel and other US-allies. The senators’ proposal, which would have required any country receiving US weapons to comply with humanitarian laws, risked a messy floor fight among Democrats divided over the US’s approach to the war amid Gaza’s rising death toll.

Instead, Van Hollen said, the administration offered to turn the amendment into a memorandum that, with the force of law, would apply the terms to the sale and transfer of all US military aid. Biden issued the memorandum, and the Senate later approved the foreign aid package, with Van Hollen’s support. That measure is now languishing in the House.

Biden has warned that Israel would cross a “red line” if it proceeded with a large-scale invasion of the southern city of Rafah, where the war has pushed nearly half of Gaza’s population. Reports suggest Netanyahu has approved a plan to invade the city, setting him up for direct conflict with the US president.

Biden has not made clear what consequences Netanyahu might face if he ignores the US’s position. An invasion of Rafah, Van Hollen said, would present “one of those moments where the Biden administration is going to have to decide whether it’s going to back up the president’s strong words with the leverage that it has”.

Dossier reveals information used to explain UN agency's deep ties to Hamas in Gaza

News Digital obtained a dossier that the Israeli government is said to have used to explain its concerns to the U.S. and other nations about its actions toward a controversial United Nations agency and its relationship with Hamas.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (known simply as UNRWA) lost hundreds of millions of dollars from donors after allegations surfaced that at least a dozen employees had ties to and assisted Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

The United States and several allies in January froze funding to UNRWA, and the agency fired the 12 employees named in the allegations. Since those initial allegations, the number has risen to potentially hundreds of employees with ties to Hamas.

The dossier reviewed by Fox News Digital includes an updated claim that the number of UNRWA employees directly involved in the Oct. 7 attack has risen to at least 15, with at least three suspected of being involved in the kidnapping of the hostages. This information, presented to ally nations by the Israeli government, allegedly prompted the countries to cut funding to the agency – an act that the majority have not reversed as of this week.

The information includes allegations that around 17% of UNRWA teachers (out of a total 8,300) and around 20% of UNRWA school principals and deputy principals (out of a total 500) are members of Hamas. Ties to the group extend to UNRWA workers in positions related to relief and humanitarian aid, with about 10% of the 151 relief workers, and members of UNRWA’s health services.

The most serious allegations claim that Hamas has representatives in the UNRWA staff union and influences it, and lines of communication exist at the district level between UNRWA’s district managers and Hamas. According to the information, "due to the scope of UNRWA's activity in the [Gaza Strip]," Hamas prioritizes its connection with UNRWA, stressing that "in steady state and in contingency state, the Hamas regime coordinates activities with UNRWA."

Satellite images reviewed by Fox News Digital show two boys' schools – the Maghazi Prep B Boys School and the Zaitun Prep A Boys School – that allegedly have Hamas tunnels underneath them. Both cases had resulted in UNRWA condemning potential violations of neutrality, but as of 2023 the tunnels remained open. Israel also identified several schools that stood next to rocket and mortar launch sites throughout the Gaza Strip.

Israel has alleged logistical support and exploitation of UNRWA’s immunity, support through supplies and aid, sale of equipment that UNRWA imported to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) weapons manufacturing units.

"Furthermore, Hamas assists UNRWA in securing the humanitarian aid that is introduced to the [Gaza Strip]," the dossier explains. "Hamas’ operatives coordinate the aid transfer for UNRWA via Hamas’ tactical network, and have operatives of the Military Wing escort and secure the convoys. UNRWA complies with Hamas’ demands in other areas, as well, such as transferring fuel and additional equipment."

The dossier also included excerpts from textbooks used in the agency’s school curriculum that allegedly include glorification of martyrdom and antisemitic tropes. Maps provided to children in their textbooks show a singular land where Israel and the Palestinian territories exist but labeled as a singular Palestine.

Israel has argued that such content violates UNRWA’s neutrality policy, which the agency on its website describes as an understanding that "humanitarian actors must not take sides in hostilities or engage in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature."

One excerpt included a math problem which used "the number of martyrs" in the first and second intifadas (meaning rebellion or uprising) and decrees on Allah’s wishes for "hypocrites in fighting against infidels" and honoring martyrs "from among the believers."

More than 1,200 Israelis were killed, more than 6,900 civilians are estimated to have been injured, and hundreds more were taken hostage when Hamas launched a surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

"UNRWA, and the United Nations writ-large, have acted swiftly and decisively in the matter of the allegations brought against UNRWA employees, fully cooperating with Israeli authorities, issuing a public disclosure of the allegations and immediately terminating the named employees," William Deere, senior congressional adviser to the Washington, D.C., office of UNRWA told Fox News Digital.

Deere also claimed that the Israeli government had provided no information beyond the names of the dozen employees and that UNRWA only learned of further accusations of greater numbers of agency employees with ties to Hamas from international media reports and later from a press briefing by an Israeli official.

U.S. intelligence in February said it was likely some employees of UNRWA participated in the attack, but it also said it could not verify Israeli allegations of wider links between the agency and UNRWA, according to The Wall Street Journal. Citing the assessment, Deere noted "the reality of Hamas' control in Gaza means that while UNRWA may have to interact at a technical level with the group to deliver humanitarian relief, but that that doesn't mean that the agency is collaborating with the militant group."

Unlike the U.S. and several other countries, the United Nations has yet to recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization.

"Another section of [the] report notes what it says is Israel's long-standing dislike of UNRWA and how Israeli bias serves to mischaracterize much of their assessments on UNRWA, resulting in distortions," Deere said.

"Israeli intelligence agencies said they concluded that 10% of all UNRWA workers had some kind of affiliation, usually political, with Hamas," the Wall Street Journal reported. "A far smaller number had ties to the militant wings of Hamas and another group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. UNRWA employs around 12,000 people in Gaza."

Deere said the investigation team from the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) had commenced an investigation into the employees and potential ties, but insisted that the Israeli government must assist the investigation. An interim report provided to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres provided information that led to Canada reversing its decision to cut funding to the agency.

Another, independent review carried out by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna commenced following the allegations against the UNRWA employees, specifically citing concerns that UNRWA was not maintaining its neutrality policy. The group will issue an interim report on March 20, 2024, with a completed report expected exactly one month later.

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the department is focused on the U.N.'s investigation "to make sure that this is fully and thoroughly investigated, that there’s clear accountability, and that as necessary, measures are put in place so that this doesn’t happen again, assuming the allegations are fully borne out."

"We welcome the decision by the U.N. to conduct an investigation and a ‘comprehensive and independent’ review of UNRWA, as well as Secretary General Guterres’ pledge to take decisive action to respond, should the allegations prove accurate," the spokesperson added.

Australia, the European Commission and Sweden also resumed funding for UNRWA in recent weeks: Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong told reporters "the best available current advice from agencies and the Australian government lawyers is that UNRWA is not a terrorist organization," arguing that it remains paramount to ensure "the integrity of UNRWA’s operations," rebuild confidence in the organization and ensure aid flows to Gaza.

Wong also pledged an additional $2.6 million to UNICEF to provide urgent services in Gaza, and a C17 Globemaster plane will also deliver defense force parachutes to help with the U.S.-led airdropping of humanitarian supplies into the enclave, which is on the brink of famine, according to the United Nations.

Survivors and family members of slain victims of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack have initiated a lawsuit against UNRWA USA and UNRWA this week, arguing the two groups are "[i]nextricably [l]inked" in supporting Hamas."

"501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations generally do good work. They feed the hungry, help the poor, and house the homeless. But on some very rare occasions, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization finances an international terrorist plot that kills over 1,200 innocent people," the lawsuit says. "This case involves one of those rare occasions."

Netanyahu agrees with Scholz: Hamas must be eliminated

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference. Scholz is scheduled to meet Israeli President Isaac Herzog and War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz as well as relatives of Israeli hostages held in Gaza alongside Netanyahu.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is in agreement that Hamas must be eliminated, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated following a meeting with Scholz in Jerusalem.

While Israel agreed with Scholz that humanitarian aid had to be increased by land, sea and air, and Israel would do whatever it could to minimize casualties, "we also agreed that Hamas has to be eliminated," Netanyahu said on Sunday.

"We cannot have a future for Gaza, a future for peace, a future for Israel if Hamas, a terrorist organization committed to our genocide, remains intact," he said. "If it remains intact, it will regroup and reconquer the Gaza Strip and repeat the massacre again and again and again."

Scholz responded that the victims of the October 7 attack would not be forgotten. "Our message has been clear: Israel has a right to defend itself against the terrorism of Hamas, and all hostages must be released. This cruel crime must end now," he said.

But the German chancellor also noted the "extremely high cost in human lives" and said he had shared his concerns with Netanyahu.

While Israel was pursing a legitimate goal of never again October 7, the question had to be asked whether, no matter how important the goal, could it justify such terribly high costs.

"We cannot stand by and watch Palestinians risk starvation … That is not what we stand for," Scholz said. He called for a deal on releasing the hostages "with a longer lasting ceasefire."

In the five months or so of the Gaza war, the number of civilian casualties "is extremely high, many would argue, much too high," Scholz asserted.

Turning to the situation in Lebanon, Scholz said that Hezbollah had to withdraw from the border with Israel and that military escalation there would have "unforeseeable consequences."