Trump cuts US off from UN Human Rights Council, bans UNRWA funding

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Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon speaks with Fox News Digital as the world awaits his nation’s response to Iran’s missile attacks.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday ceasing U.S. engagement with the U.N. Human Rights Council and banning funding for the U.N. relief agency for Gaza. 

The order came as the president was set to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump said on Tuesday while signing the executive order, which called for a review of funding to the U.N., that the U.N. has tremendous potential but that it needs to get its "act together."

"I've always felt that the U.N. has tremendous potential," Trump said. "It's not being well-run."

Trump continued, "A lot of these conflicts that we're working on should be settled, or at least we should have some help in settling them. But we never seem to get help. That should be the primary purpose of the U.N."

The U.S. has long accused the Human Rights Council of bias against Israel and turning a blind eye to other nations’ human rights abuses. 

The Biden administration paused funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) after reports that some of its staffers were involved in some of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks on Israel. 

Trump said of the Human Rights Council: "They're going to end up losing their credibility like other organizations, and then they're going to be nothing." 

"Not everybody agrees with me," he added. "The potential of the United Nations is fantastic, if properly run."

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Palestinians carry flour they received from a UNRWA facility. (Abed Zagout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Trump had withdrawn the U.S. from the U.N. Human Rights Council during his first administration, but former President Joe Biden rejoined the council. In 2023, U.S. funds accounted for nearly 30% of UNRWA's donor contributions.

The U.S. is not currently a member of the council, but is considered an observer.

The council is made up of 47 member states, including those with documented records of human rights violations, like Cuba, Russia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, China and Qatar.

Over the weekend, members of parliament from 14 European countries appealed to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, asking him to "remove UNRWA as a UN agency" after the testimony of a freed Israeli hostage who said she was held in a UNRWA facility.

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Emily Damari, a British-Israeli woman, told UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer she had been held in facilities belonging to the relief agency and that Hamas had denied her medical care after shooting her twice. 

UNRWA has been calling for investigations into reports Hamas had used its facilities, UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma told the BBC.  

Trump signed the executive order withdrawing from the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday. (Jim Watson/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

"These claims that hostages have been held in UNRWA premises, even if they were vacated, are absolutely serious," she said. "We’ve repeatedly called for independent investigations into these claims, including the misuse and disregard of UNRWA premises by Palestinian armed groups. That also includes Hamas."

Meanwhile, an Israeli ban on UNRWA took effect in late January and international staff were forced to leave the country — a move the agency predicted would "sabotage Gaza’s recovery and political transition."

UNRWA is the main agency responsible for distributing aid to Palestinians caught in the midst of Israel’s offensive campaign in Gaza. But the U.N. fired nine staffers after an internal probe found they may have been involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Israel's ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon praised Trump's move, and said the council has "not been promoting human rights for a long time — it is aggressively promoting extreme anti-Semitism."

UNRWA distributes aid to Palestinians in Gaza. (Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters)

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"At the same time, UNRWA has long lost its status as an independent humanitarian organization and has turned into a terrorist authority controlled by Hamas," Dannon went on.

Meanwhile, Arab diplomats from key U.S. partners are working to support UNRWA. In a joint statement after a meeting in Cairo over the weekend, foreign ministers from Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt affirmed the "pivotal, indispensable, and irreplaceable role" of UNRWA and "categorically rejected any attempts to bypass or diminish its role."