In a stunning reversal from the Biden administration, President Trump’s Department of Justice argues that the United Nations top agency for aiding Palestinians has no immunity from prosecution over “allegations of atrocious conduct.” 

At issue is a $1 billion lawsuit filed last year by the estate of Tamar Kedem Siman Tov, whose entire family was murdered by Hamas terrorists at Kibbutz Nir Oz in Israel on October 7, 2023, against the UN Relief and Works Agency. Hamas, according to the 167-page lawsuit, has used the agency’s facilities for weapons storage. It allowed tunnels and command centers to be built under its sites, while funneling cash into the terror group’s coffers by insisting on paying employees in U.S. currency. 

After the lawsuit was filed last June in the Southern District of New York, the Biden administration determined that as a UN organ, UNRWA enjoys immunity afforded to international organizations from prosecution in America. Yet, the view of the prior administration “was wrong,” the current U.S. attorney for the Southern District, Jay Clayton, wrote last night in a 10-page letter that argues the agency differs in several aspects from other UN organs. 

“This is a very big deal,” a South Texas College of Law professor and Supreme Court watcher, Joshua Blackman, tells the Sun. Immunity for the UN and similar entities is “an important principle of international law. We don’t want people engaging in diplomacy in our courts. Yet, he adds, “then you have UNRWA,” an agency that “has long been viewed as some soft of benevolent charitable organization, but October 7 has cast a new light on it, and the Trump administration has recognized what has long been the case: UNRWA is not entitled to sovereign immunity.”

The UN, on the other hand, maintains that UNRWA, as a part of its system, is immune from American prosecution. “We will continue to set out the basis for our position before the court,” the spokesman for Secretary-General Guterres, Stephane Dujarric, tells the Sun.  

Established in 1950, UNRWA has long been a thorn in Israel’s side, which argues that its education system teaches hate and maintains dreams of erasing the character of the Jewish state by flooding it with descendants of Arab refugees. Since the October 7 massacre, growing evidence has surfaced that Hamas has used the agency’s facilities to launch attacks and harbor terrorists.

UNRWA is a “corrupt organization that has been silent about — and at times complicit in — the murder of Israelis should rightly not be immune from lawsuits in the U.S.,” Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, tells the Sun. “UNRWA has resoundingly failed in its humanitarian mission and has become nothing more than a front for terror.”

The lawsuit filed last year detailed such atrocities, naming the organization and seven of its current past and current officials, including its career administrator, Philippe Lazarrini. After video clips surfaced, showing active participation of UNRWA employees in the October 7 massacre, America suspended funding to the agency. So did several other countries, including Mr. Lazarrini’s homeland, Switzerland.   

According to the new DOJ filing, certain UN bodies, “like specialized agencies,” do not enjoy immunity from prosecution unless so designated by an executive order of the president. UNRWA, it argues, acts separately from the UN General Assembly. The agency’s staffers are exempt from certain restrictions and most of its funding is from sources other than the UN budget.     

As UNRWA differs from other UN agencies, Mr. Lazarrini and the agency’s other officials named in the suit do not “benefit from the derivative immunity that attaches to certain UN officials,” according to the Justice Department’s letter.  

“The position of the United Nations is longstanding and clear: UNRWA is a subsidiary body of the General Assembly and, as such, is entitled to immunity from legal process under the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations,” Mr. Dujarric tells the Sun. “Through our counsel, we will continue to set out the basis for our position before the court. We will consider whether any other action is appropriate.”

UNRWA was created in 1950 to uniquely help Arabs displaced during Israel’s war of independence. It acts separately from the UN High Commission for Refugees, which was created to help displaced persons around the rest of the world. UNRWA has established camps in Arab countries around Israel. Several of these countries bar citizenship, or even work permits, for the camp residents and the camps have become a hotbed for terrorism. 

While the goal of the UN refugee agency is to end refugee status, including by resettlement, UNRWA maintains that Palestinian refugees will only resettle once the Israeli-Arab dispute is resolved. Unlike the High Commission for Refugees, the Palestinian-dedicated agency considers descendants of 1948 displaced Arabs as perpetual refugees. When it was established, UNRWA dealt with 750,000 refugees. Now it is responsible for nearly 6 million people.