Key Takeaways:
A coalition of former U.S. Attorneys General, intelligence chiefs, and legal scholars filed an amicus brief arguing UNRWA should not enjoy “absolute immunity” in a lawsuit tied to Hamas’ October 7 massacre.
The brief warns that shielding UNRWA from legal accountability contradicts U.S. counterterrorism policy, citing evidence of Hamas infiltration, employee participation in terror, and years of operational overlap in Gaza.
If the appeals court rejects UNRWA’s immunity claim, the agency could face subpoenas, discovery, and legal scrutiny for the first time, shattering its decades-long status as politically and legally untouchable.
For decades, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) has occupied a uniquely protected position in international politics. Vast, opaque, and largely unaccountable, the agency has operated as though it were immune not only to reform but also to scrutiny itself.
Perhaps that sense of invulnerability is no accident. UNRWA is exceptional, though not in the way its defenders usually mean. It is the only refugee body in the world that does not seek to resolve refugeehood, but to perpetuate it. Under UNRWA’s rules, Palestinian refugee status is inherited indefinitely, passed down through generations, ensuring that the population it serves only ever grows. The result is a permanent refugee class and an agency whose funding, relevance, and institutional survival are permanently guaranteed.
Related reading: The Palestinian Refugees: 1948 to Today
Over time, UNRWA has not merely expanded; it has become deeply compromised. In Gaza, the agency operated for years alongside Hamas, its facilities woven into the fabric of the terror group’s rule. Evidence has repeatedly emerged of UNRWA premises being used for militant purposes, including weapons storage and terror infrastructure embedded within and beneath schools. In the aftermath of the October 7 massacre, UNRWA employees were also exposed as active members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad who took part in the attack.
UNRWA employees took part in October 7 attacks
And yet, despite mounting evidence and repeated warnings, UNRWA has remained shielded from accountability, protected by the assumption that, as a UN body, it is legally untouchable.
That assumption is now being challenged in a U.S. appeals court. And the challenge is coming not from activists or politicians, but from the heart of the American national security establishment.
A Legal Challenge To UNRWA’s “Immunity”
Last month, a group of former U.S. Attorneys General, senior national security officials, intelligence chiefs, and international law scholars filed an amicus curiae, or “friend of the court,” brief in support of an appeal brought by dozens of families of victims of the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre.
Those families had sued UNRWA in U.S. federal court, offering evidence that the agency provided material support to Hamas over many years, including through funding, infrastructure, and personnel, and that this support helped enable Hamas’ operations in Gaza, culminating in the October 7 attack.
In October last year, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres dismissed the case, ruling that UNRWA enjoyed “absolute immunity” from suit as a subsidiary of the United Nations – a conclusion that stood in direct opposition to the position of the U.S. government itself. Earlier, the Department of Justice had submitted a letter to the court stating plainly that UNRWA does not enjoy immunity in this case, and that the agency had played a role in Hamas’ “heinous offenses” on October 7. The Biden administration had already suspended U.S. funding to UNRWA, citing employee participation in the massacre and deep infiltration by terrorist groups.
Following the dismissal, the plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, asking it to overturn the immunity ruling.
The newly filed amicus brief supports that appeal.
Who Filed the Brief, and Why It Matters
Among the signatories are former Attorneys General William Barr, Michael Mukasey, and Edwin Meese; former NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander; senior former officials from the State Department, Treasury, USAID, and the National Security Council; and legal scholars including Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.
Their message to the court is unambiguous. Granting UNRWA immunity would actively undermine U.S. counterterrorism policy.
This is not an activist filing. It is a warning from officials who spent decades overseeing national security, foreign policy, and terrorism financing. And it strikes at the core of UNRWA’s long-standing shield, the claim that it enjoys blanket immunity simply by virtue of being associated with the UN.
What This Means for UNRWA
At issue is not simply one lawsuit. It is whether UNRWA can continue to operate beyond the reach of the law.
The amici argue that:
UN treaties grant immunity to the United Nations itself, not to every subsidiary agency created decades later
Courts should defer to the Executive Branch on matters of national security and terrorism
Shielding UNRWA would give it carte blanche to continue conduct linked to terrorism, in direct defiance of U.S. policy
If the appeals court agrees, the consequences would be immediate and uncomfortable. Losing immunity would mean subpoenas. Discovery. Testimony. Documents. In other words, scrutiny, which is the one thing UNRWA has spent decades avoiding.
Israel has already moved to restrict UNRWA’s operations within its territory, but the agency continues to function elsewhere, sustained by international funding and political protection. A loss of immunity would not dissolve UNRWA overnight. But it would fundamentally alter how the agency is viewed, no longer as a sacrosanct humanitarian actor beyond challenge, but as a litigable entity whose actions carry legal consequences.
For an organization long accustomed to political protection and moral exemption, that would be a profound shift.
It may also mark the beginning of the end of UNRWA’s status as “politically untouchable,” and a decisive crack in the legal armor that has shielded it for decades.
Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region. Get updates direct to your phone. Join our WhatsApp and Telegram channels!
