UNRWA funding emerges as sticking point as lawmakers work to avoid partial government shutdown

As lawmakers work to finalize the text of the next round of government spending bills, a dispute over funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency is threatening to derail negotiations.

The United States and more than a dozen other countries suspended funding for the main U.N. agency for Palestinians after Israel accused some of the agency’s employees in Gaza of participating in the Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas murdered some 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 253.