In reverse of a longtime stance, US says UN Palestinian refugee agency isn’t immune from lawsuits

Palestinians carry the body of Abdul Khaleq Jbour, 16, who was killed in an Israeli military raid, during his funeral at the West Bank village of Salem, near Nablus, Friday, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
WASHINGTON – The Trump administration has decided that the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees is not immune from being sued, reversing the U.S. government’s longstanding position that the organization was protected from civil liability.
The Justice Department revealed its new stance in a letter it filed in federal court in New York on Thursday as part of a lawsuit that aims to hold the agency, known as UNRWA, accountable for the Oct. 7, 2023, deadly attack on Israel by Hamas. The change in position underscores the hardened perspective toward the agency under the Trump administration following allegations by Israel that some of the agency staff was involved in the Hamas rampage.
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The lawsuit, filed by families of some of the victims of the massacre, alleges that UNRWA had aided Hamas by, among other things, permitting weapons storage and deployment centers in its schools and medical clinics and by employing Hamas members. Lawyers for UNRWA have called the lawsuit “absurd” and have said in court filings that the agency was immune from liability as a “subsidiary organ” of the United Nations.
The previous US stance protected the agency
In a statement Friday, UNRWA spokesperson Juliet Touma said the Justice Department filing reversed the U.S. government’s “longstanding recognition that UNRWA is a subsidiary body of the General Assembly and an integral part of the United Nations, entitled to immunity from legal process.” She said the agency would continue to make its case before the court and