ECAJ has called for the Aus­trali­an Gov­ern­ment to stop funding UNRWA after it was revealed by a US Gov­ern­ment agency USAid that over 100 staff had ties to Hamas. Australia is funding UNRWA this year to the tune of

ECAJ Co-CEO Peter Wertheim said, “The latest reports about the pen­et­ra­tion of UNRWA by Hamas and other terrorist groups are truly dis­turb­ing, more than 100 current or former staff at UNRWA have been named as active ter­ror­ists by the USAID Office of Inspector General, a stat­utor­ily inde­pend­ent law enforce­ment and oversight body in the US – shock­ingly, these staff include UNRWA school prin­cipals and teachers,” Mr Wertheim said.

“Aus­trali­ans were assured more than two years ago that existing and addi­tion­al safe­guards suf­fi­ciently protect / Aus­trali­an taxpayer funding of UNRWA.

“That assurance has never looked less credible. It’s one thing for Aus­trali­an taxpayers to assist Palestini­an civilians who are in genuine need, but the risk of some of that funding being misused directly or indir­ectly to assist Hamas and other terrorist gangs cannot be tolerated, espe­cially at a time when so many Aus­trali­ans are doing it tough.”