U.S. State Department officials reportedly warned President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team of a possible humanitarian “catastrophe” in Gaza when new Israeli laws go into effect at the end of the month barring the operations of the U.N. relief agency responsible for the territory.
“Last week, State Department officials briefed Joel Rayburn from the Trump transition team on the UNRWA situation,” three U.S. officials told Axios, referring to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
Rayburn, a former U.S. envoy to Syria, is expected to be named the Trump administration’s Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs.
“We wanted them to know what is going to happen 10 days into their presidency,” a U.S. official told Axios. “We thought it was the responsible thing to do. It’s a catastrophe waiting to happen.”
The officials expressed “deep concern” about the implications of Israel’s new laws against UNRWA for Gaza’s humanitarian situation.
On Oct. 28, Israel’s Knesset made it illegal for UNRWA to operate in Israeli territory, and for state officials to cooperate with the agency.
The two laws were passed by a large majority following the exposure of UNRWA staff complicity in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, and despite pressure from the United States and other countries against the move.
A December report by watchdog group UN Watch revealed that UNRWA’s top officials “routinely” meet with Lebanese and Gazan terror groups.
Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA commissioner-general, “and his colleagues knowingly allow Hamas and other terrorist groups to infiltrate UNRWA’s employee base, indoctrinate impressionable Palestinian children to pursue a path of terrorism against Israelis and Jews and install military infrastructure underneath or next to UNRWA facilities,” per the report.
The report noted that more than 10% of UNRWA’s senior educators in Gaza are members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Israel has claimed that hundreds of UNRWA’s 13,000 Gazan staff members, including teachers, are active Hamas terrorists.
On Jan. 3, The New York Times reported that UNRWA planned to fully suspend its operations in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. The U.N. agency quickly denied the report, which Juliette Thom, UNRWA’s communications director, called “grossly inaccurate.”