The Trump administration says that "everything is on the table"—including terrorism-related sanctions—as it moves closer to taking fresh punitive measures against the Hamas-linked United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), according to three senior officials, who told the Washington Free Beacon that the aid group’s "time playing a role in Gaza is over."
"The Trump Administration is currently exploring all options to hold [UNRWA] accountable," a senior State Department official familiar with the matter said. "UNRWA is a corrupt organization with a proven track record of aiding and abetting terrorists."
Reuters reported earlier on Thursday that "terrorism-related sanctions" are among the list of options. The official said "no final decisions have yet been made," but did confirm that "everything is on the table."
The high-level discussions come as federal investigators compile mounting evidence of the U.N.’s complicity in Hamas’s aid diversion schemes. This includes instances in which Hamas "commandeered U.N. aid trucks," embedded terrorist operatives in "U.N. agencies or at U.N. facilities," and ensured humanitarian goods were "directly delivered to Hamas officials," as the Free Beacon reported earlier this year. Internal Hamas documents reviewed by the Free Beacon last week show the extent to which the terror group infiltrated U.N.-affiliated NGOs in Gaza, using them as intelligence resources and effectively controlling the network of non-profits operating in the territory.
A second U.S. official briefed on the UNRWA discussions said that, whatever route the administration takes, the aid organization will not play a role in Gaza’s future humanitarian landscape.
"UNRWA was found to have explicitly supported Hamas and other terrorist groups," the second senior official said, noting that dozens of UNRWA staffers were found to have directly participated in Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror spree. "Their time playing a role in Gaza is over."
Israeli intelligence, for its part, determined in April that "among the 12,521 UNRWA employees in the Gaza Strip, at least 1,462 (12%) are members of Hamas or other designated terrorist organizations."
The Trump administration has already taken action against UNRWA in the months since President Donald Trump returned to office. In April, the administration stripped UNRWA of its immunity in U.S. courts, allowing a flood of lawsuits from the families of those killed by Hamas. The State Department informed Congress in July that it had "determined UNRWA is irredeemably compromised" and must be dismantled, according to a notice first reported by the Free Beacon.
U.S. officials told the Free Beacon that the administration is paying close attention to a series of investigations by the chief oversight body responsible for monitoring U.S. foreign assistance. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) inspector general’s office—a law enforcement entity separate from USAID—has begun building a blacklist to prevent Hamas-tied UNRWA staff from migrating to other U.N. agencies that may be involved in the post-war Gaza reconstruction project.
Nonpublic briefing material obtained by the Free Beacon in November revealed that the U.N. never designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, so membership "would not automatically disqualify an applicant from working on a U.S. taxpayer-funded U.N. program." Federal investigators launched Operation Stop the Carousel in response, hoping not only to identify Hamas-tied UNRWA employees but also refer them to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.
"The formal investigative findings of USAID inspector general underscore the pervasive interference and infiltration of Hamas terrorists within UNRWA," a third U.S. diplomatic official said. "An organization that consistently and willfully hires terrorists that divert humanitarian aid should be sanctioned as a terrorist organization."
A U.N. spokesman told the Free Beacon that he had "no response" to the potential sanctions, but noted "the secretary-general’s strong and consistent support for UNRWA and the critical role it played in saving lives among Palestinians in Gaza over the past two years."
The U.N. itself has demonstrated an inability to properly investigate UNRWA employees who are linked to Hamas, which has prompted the U.S. government’s own independent probes. A U.N.-run investigation into UNRWA employees’ connections to Hamas deliberately ignored Israeli intelligence—including audio recordings and cell phone data—to brush aside the agency’s relationship with the terror group, a Free Beacon review of confidential U.N. documents found.
