US to Withdraw Again From UN Human Rights Council, End Funding to UNRWA

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres speaks on 2025 priorities to the U.N. General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York City on Jan. 15, 2025. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

WASHINGTON—The United States will withdraw again from the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and end funding to the U.N. agency dealing with Palestinian refugees, a White House official told The Epoch Times.

The United States withdrew from the UNHRC and ended funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in 2018.

The Biden administration reversed both moves in 2021, although it paused funding to the UNRWA in 2024 because of allegations that several of its employees were involved in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Those employees have been fired.

The UNHRC and the UNRWA have come under fire by critics who say that both have expressed hostility toward Israel.

The UNHRC, according to the group, is “responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situations of human rights violations and making recommendations on them.”

Critics have pointed out that the UNHRC has included countries that violate human rights. Such countries on the council include China, Egypt, Burundi, and Venezuela.

In 2024, Congress passed, as part of a government funding bill, a measure to continue halting U.S. funding for UNRWA through March 2025.

The United States has given the most money of any country to UNRWA. In 2023, the United States gave the group $422 million.

The Epoch Times reached out to the United Nations for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

UNRWA started in 1950 and, according to the agency, “has played an essential role for over 60 years since its establishment in providing vital services for the well-being, human development and protection of Palestine refugees and the amelioration of their plight, pending the just resolution of the question of the Palestine refugees.”

Its mission is to help Palestinian refugees “achieve their full potential in human development under the difficult circumstances in which they live, consistent with internationally agreed goals and standards.”

However, critics say that UNRWA is a breeding ground for hatred toward the Jewish state through its schools and that Hamas uses its facilities to store weapons, including rockets, and hold hostages.

UNRWA has refuted the criticisms.

Emel Akan contributed to this report.