"U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today led 20 colleagues in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressing concern for the administration's recent decision to resume U.S. foreign assistance funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The senators also encouraged the administration to cease this funding until significant reforms to UNRWA are secured.
Joining Risch were U.S. Senators Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), John Thune (R-S.D.), and Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.).
'We are concerned that this administration's decision to resume U.S. assistance to UNRWA was made in haste, without any actionable attempt to secure much-needed and meaningful reforms of the agency,' said the senators..."