Progressive House Democrats on Thursday heavily criticized a provision in the recently unveiled $1.2 trillion spending package that would halt funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
A number of prominent progressives highlighted cuts in funding for the key United Nations agency that provides food, water and shelter to Palestinians in Gaza as one of the reasons they are leery about voting for the government funding bill.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said the move to restrict funding is “highly political.”
“I think it’s unconscionable; it’s unconscionable,” Ocasio-Cortez said Thursday. “It’s also not grounded in sound facts. We have intelligence assessments that speak to this, and I find it highly political.”
The Biden administration said it would temporarily stop funding for UNRWA over allegations that some of its employees partook in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and Republicans pushed to keep the funding cut off.