Sen. Marsha Blackburn wants halt to US Gaza funding: ‘Should be locked down’

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and a group of her fellow Republicans are trying to stop further US funding to a UN group in the Gaza Strip whose personnel have incited violence against Jewish people — after the Biden administration has already funneled more than $730 million to the organization.

The Senate GOPers introduced a bill this week to block funds for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which has been accused of creating antisemitic school curricula for students in the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank, as well as ignoring terrorist activities at its facilities.

The funding would be reinstated after Iran, the country supporting and funding Hamas, is “expelled from the UN and investigated for violations of the genocide convention,” Blackburn said earlier this week.

“All of this money should be locked down,” Blackburn told The Post in an interview during which she criticized Biden’s decision to unfreeze billions in Iranian assets as part of a prisoner exchange last month.

“The $6 billion should be locked down. The sanctions should be put in place,” Blackburn said. “Even last week, we saw aid going into Gaza. Who ended up with that aid? It was Hamas.”

The Tennessee Republican also referenced UNRWA having “hired people affiliated with Hamas” and allowing their facilities to be “used to store weaponry and ammo” for the jihadists, who on Oct. 7 killed more than 1,400 people in a surprise attack on southern Israel.

Falling on the 50-year anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, Hamas’ massacre was also the worst attack on Israel in its 75-year history, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare war on the terrorist group.

UNRWA has employed educators who “regularly call to murder Jews” and teach from textbooks “that glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis and incite antisemitism,” according to a March report by the non-governmental organization UN Watch and the Israeli non-profit Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education.

Since the US can’t legally fund the Palestinian Authority or Hamas, the Biden administration has given the lion’s share of its funding to UNRWA, which serves millions of refugees in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Trump administration defunded the group in 2018, calling it an “irredeemably flawed operation.”

But Biden reversed that decision, choosing to funnel hundreds of millions to the organization through his administration since taking office in 2021.

“One would think that he would have kept in place the things that [former President Donald] Trump had put in place that were actually working on the global stage,” Blackburn also told The Post. “Not only did he go back to funding them after Trump had stopped that money, he has upped that money.”

“I think that what you have in this administration are people who are sympathetic to some of these organizations,” she said. “They think you can appease some of these terrorist organizations. You cannot negotiate with them.”

“If you put money into some of these organizations such as UNRWA, that money is going to end up in the hands of Hamas. Hamas is not there to provide humanitarian aid for the Gazans, Hamas has in their charter, their goal is to destroy Israel,” according to Blackburn.

Biden’s State Department has approved grants to UNRWA and other organizations in the Palestinian territories, raising concerns from experts who have told The Post that few “guardrails” exist to prevent money from getting into the wrong hands.

A 2021 State Department memo also shows that US officials were aware there was “a high risk Hamas could potentially derive indirect, unintentional benefit from US assistance to Gaza,” the Washington Free Beacon previously reported.

In a Thursday night Oval Office address, Biden called on Congress to pass $14 billion in emergency funding for Israel amid its war with Hamas, along with $60 billion in assistance for Ukraine as the Russian invasion of that country nears its two-year anniversary.

The president said “time is of the essence” in approving the request, calling it “a smart investment that’s going to pay dividends for American security for generations.”

Blackburn said the remarks by Biden “were insufficient to the challenge that is in front of us.”

“Getting aid to Israel should be a priority,” Blackburn noted. “I think also it was disappointing, listening to his speech, that he never called out Iran.”

“He didn’t go after them for being the largest state sponsor of terrorism,” she went on. “He didn’t call out Hamas and Hezbollah and these terrorist organizations that are proxies of Iran.”

“He didn’t implement oil sanctions on Iran, which would stop Iran from having access to the money to fund terrorism and to fund a nuclear weapons buildup.”

Republican senators Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Marco Rubio of Florida, Katie Britt of Alabama, Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah have joined Blackburn in calling for an end to funding of the UN group.

She emphasized that the members were looking “to build bipartisan support” for the bill, as well as for increased aid to Israel.

In a separate letter with 19 other Republicans, Blackburn is also asking the Biden administration to ensure the $6 billion in Iranian assets be withheld.

The Treasury Department sought to reassure Blackburn and other lawmakers earlier this week that Qatari officials, who are currently in possession of the funds, would not let the assets out of their control.

The GOP lawmakers are not alone in calling for defunding UNRWA. Republican presidential candidates Doug Burgum and Nikki Haley have also argued for the Biden admin to stop sending funds to the organization that “fuels hate against Israel.”