Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who arrived in Israel shortly after Vice President JD Vance left for Washington, denounced the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) amid the US-brokered ceasefire.
“UNRWA is not going to play any role in that,” Rubio said when asked whether the controversial organization would help deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. “The United Nations is here. They are on the ground. We are willing to work with them if they can make it work, but not UNRWA. UNRWA has become a subsidiary of Hamas.”
UNRWA demanded in a message on X allowed to do work in Gaza.
“As by far the largest UN agency operating in the Gaza Strip, UNRWA has an unrivaled logistics network, long-standing community trust, which manages the distribution of supplies based on vulnerability and clear criteria. Our teams are ready, inside and outside Gaza. Let’s work,” the organization wrote.
Experts urge TRUMP to ban terrorism-linked UN agency from his Gaza peace plan
Secretary of State Marco Rubio listens to a question while speaking to the media after a visit to the Civil-Military Coordination Center in southern Israel on October 24, 2025. (Fadel Senna/Pool via Reuters)
On October 17, days after world leaders supported a US-brokered ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) opened a Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), where Rubio spoke on Friday.
The CMCC is located in southern Israel and will serve as the main hub for stabilization efforts in Gaza. It will also monitor the implementation of the ceasefire agreement and has an operations floor designed to monitor developments in Gaza in real time.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly last month, UN Secretary General António Guterres spoke at a rally in support of UNRWA, saying the organization has “made invaluable contributions to development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security, including for Israel.”
“UNRWA is vital to any prospects for peace and stability in the region,” Guterres added.
UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City, Gaza, on February 21, 2024. (Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
US military will oversee the next phase of the peace deal from its coordination base in Israel
However, the US and Israel have taken tough stances against the organization, especially in the wake of the October 7, 2023 massacre.
President Donald Trump reaffirmed the US commitment in February not to fund UNRWA.
In the executive order Trump said that “UNRWA has reportedly been infiltrated by members of groups long designated by the Secretary of State as foreign terrorist organizations, and that UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.”
A Palestinian boy walks near an UNRWA school hosting displaced persons, which was hit during an overnight Israeli attack in Gaza City on July 5, 2025. (Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters)
UNRWA SCHOOLS ‘HIPPED BY HAMAS’, WATCHDOG REPORT WARNS
In April 2025, when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) required Israel to cooperate with UNRWA, Washington supported Jerusalemand said it was under no obligation to cooperate with the agency and that there were “sufficient reasons to question UNRWA’s impartiality.”
UNRWA has announced this in August 2024, an investigation by the Office of Internal Oversight Services into whether its personnel participated in the attacks, as Israel alleged, ended. Following the investigation, which examined 19 UNRWA staff, nine staff were dismissed due to evidence “likely to indicate” their involvement in the attacks.
The investigation found one case where there was no evidence to confirm the staffer’s involvement and nine other cases where “the evidence obtained by OIOS was insufficient” to prove their participation, UNRWA said.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
