A federal probe into the United Nations Relief and Works Agency is widening to cover at least 1,500 individuals linked to the Gaza relief organization and suspected of terror connections, the Washington Free Beacon reported. The expansion is fueling bipartisan momentum in Congress and active discussions inside the Trump administration about stripping UNRWA's diplomatic immunity and designating it a foreign terrorist organization.
The numbers alone tell a damning story. Fifteen hundred suspected individuals inside a single U.N. agency, not a rogue handful, not a clerical error, but a figure that suggests institutional rot on a scale the United Nations has never been forced to confront publicly.
And UNRWA's response to the investigation? Stonewalling. Every U.N. agency contacted by American investigators refused to hand over the requested personnel data. That refusal is now accelerating the very consequences UNRWA's leadership presumably hoped to avoid.
The probe centers on the USAID inspector general's office, which sent letters to six U.N. agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross in December 2025. Those letters requested the names of all employees "who worked on U.S.-government funded awards," along with contact information, dates and places of birth, and details about their "interactions with Hamas."
None of the responding U.N. recipients provided the requested personnel information, a fact disclosed last month. The refusal was wholesale, not a partial compliance, not a negotiation over scope, but a blanket rejection of legitimate American inquiries into how U.S. taxpayer dollars were spent and who handled them.
A senior State Department official familiar with the investigation framed the findings bluntly:
"The USAID inspector general's cases, coming in droves, are corroborating the obvious parent-subsidiary relationship between UNRWA and Hamas in Gaza."
That same official went further, stating that "if UNRWA was not a U.N. organization, it'd be undeniably facing terrorist sanctions based on what USAID IG has uncovered." The implication is plain: UNRWA's U.N. status has functioned as a shield, not a seal of legitimacy.
The Trump administration stripped virtually all American funding to UNRWA in February 2026. But cutting checks is only one lever. Administration officials are now weighing whether to strip the agency's diplomatic immunity altogether, a move that would expose UNRWA to terrorism sanctions and massive civil lawsuits from October 7 survivors and victims' families.
A second U.S. official described the range of options on the table.
"There has to be consequences for UNRWA, for its conduct in the run-up to and role in October 7, and continuing all the way to today with its ongoing refusal to adhere to legitimate and pressing American inquiries."
That official added: "Without immunities, there is a potential exposure to an FTO designation and massive lawsuits, which would then be for the courts to adjudicate."
The legal landscape may already be shifting. Richard Goldberg, a former Trump administration official now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noted that the Justice Department's current position holds that UNRWA does not enjoy privilege or immunity. "That means nothing stops the Treasury Department from imposing terrorism sanctions on UNRWA to force its closure," Goldberg said.
As U.S. investigators have told Congress, the U.N. agencies' refusal to hand over employee data has only deepened suspicions about what those records would reveal.
The legislative pressure is building from both chambers. On May 19, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas led a letter signed by 24 Senate colleagues urging the Trump administration "to take decisive action to fully dismantle UNRWA and eliminate it from the UN budget." The letter cited the USAID inspector general's ongoing work as grounds for action.
Cotton did not mince words in a separate statement:
"UNRWA's terrorist ties are clear, and the U.N.'s attempt to hide those ties from the U.S. government is deeply concerning. It's long past time to completely dismantle the organization."
In the House, Rep. Mike Lawler of New York and 90 other lawmakers issued a similar call to dismantle the agency. That is more than ninety members of Congress, across both chambers, now on record demanding UNRWA's end. Not reform. Not restructuring. Dismantlement.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas tied the agency's future directly to its cooperation with American investigators. "Either they come clean, or I expect growing momentum for designating them for the support they give to terrorists," Cruz said.
Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee pointed to the broader pattern of U.N. obstruction. "It's appalling that other U.N. agencies today are still stonewalling the Trump Administration's ongoing investigations," Hagerty stated. "If U.N. agencies refuse to show basic transparency and accountability, then the Executive Branch and Congress must respond appropriately."
The foreign terrorist organization designation remains the sharpest tool available. If applied, it would make any material support for UNRWA a federal crime, effectively shutting the agency out of the international financial system and forcing its closure.
The senior State Department official laid out the logic in plain terms: "If the probe confirms that if it walks like an FTO and talks like an FTO and employs FTO personnel, a case exists that it should be an FTO."
The political complexity is real. Goldberg acknowledged that some officials may hesitate to act while the administration's Gaza Board of Peace initiative is still in its early stages. But he warned against letting caution become paralysis.
"Some people might be afraid of breaking eggs at the U.N. while the Board of Peace is still young, but I guarantee UNRWA's survival will be the death of the Board of Peace the second Donald Trump leaves office."
That warning carries weight. Any diplomatic framework built on top of an unreformed UNRWA would rest on an agency that federal investigators say functions as a subsidiary of Hamas. The contradiction would be unsustainable.
Even after the administration cut direct American funding, UNRWA's budget remains a line item in the broader U.N. budget. That means American taxpayer dollars still flow to the organization indirectly.
A second U.S. official put it simply: "UNRWA funding remains a line item in the U.N. budget, and there's still American taxpayer dollars going towards that, and that's unacceptable."
A third U.S. official warned UNRWA against betting that its U.N. status would continue to provide cover. "Given its history with Hamas, UNRWA does not have the luxury of not cooperating with an investigation and thinking there might not be consequences. We will respond accordingly."
The State Department is building a blacklist of terror-linked UNRWA employees. The USAID inspector general's caseload continues to grow. Congress has the votes and the will to act. And the legal framework for an FTO designation appears, by the Justice Department's own position, to be clear of the immunity obstacles that once seemed insurmountable.
UNRWA's defenders, and there are still plenty in the international aid establishment, will argue that the agency is indispensable to Palestinian refugees. But that argument grows harder to sustain when the agency's own workforce is riddled with individuals suspected of ties to the terror group that carried out October 7. An aid agency that doubles as a Hamas employment pipeline is not serving refugees. It is serving Hamas.
The question is no longer whether UNRWA has a problem. Fifteen hundred suspected cases answered that. The question is whether the international community will continue to subsidize an organization that federal investigators say operates as a front for terrorism, or whether the United States will finally force the reckoning that decades of diplomatic courtesy have postponed.
When a U.N. agency refuses to tell American investigators who it employs and how those employees interact with a designated terror group, it has already answered every question that matters.
