More than 8,000 plaintiffs, including 1,500 dual American-Israeli citizens and 6,500 Israelis, have filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia demanding permanent defunding of the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Robert J. Tolchin in Brooklyn and Nitsana Darshan-Leitner in Tel Aviv.
“UNRWA is a disaster for both Israel and the Palestinians. In fact, the Palestinians deserve a lot better than UNRWA. They deserve an organization that will not designate them as refugees indefinitely,” Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, founder of Shurat HaDin—Israel Law Center, an Israeli-based civil rights organization that has represented hundreds of terror victims in many lawsuits, told JNS.
“If UNRWA keeps teaching Palestinians that one day they will return to their homes in Tel Aviv, Acre and Haifa, and continue feeding the illusion of the right of return, Palestinians will never have a chance at a better life,” she added.
The U.S. is a major funder of UNRWA. In 2023 alone, U.S. support for UNRWA reached a record high of $422 million. Deprived of it, UNRWA could collapse which is the goal of the lawsuit, especially in light of UNRWA’s terror involvement.