FILE PHOTO: U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) calls for the rescinding of the COVID-19 mandate for U.S. military during a news conference about the National Defense Authorization Act, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., December 7, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Senators Rick Scott (R-FL) and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) on Tuesday announced the reintroduction of the Stop Taxpayer Funding of Hamas Act, which would prohibit US aid expenditures intended for Gaza so long as that aid continues to benefit Hamas and other terrorist groups.

“Israel is a country facing unyielding attacks from terrorist groups, like Hamas, who wish to destroy the Jewish state and its people,” Scott said in a statement. “Our bill, the Stop Taxpayer Funding of Hamas Act, requires the president to certify that any taxpayer money authorized to the territory of Gaza will not end up in the hands of Hamas terrorists, making clear that we will cut off ANY AND ALL ties, direct or indirect, to terrorist organizations that attack our allies.”

Critics of US aid to UNRWA – the UN agency that assists Palestinian refugees and their descendants – argue that by operating schools and hospitals in the Gaza Strip, the agency effectively benefits Hamas by relieving it of costs it would otherwise have to pay from its own budget.

“There is no circumstance in which taxpayer dollars should prop up terrorist organizations, especially when such an organization’s goal is the destruction of Israel, an important ally to us.  Hamas is just such an organization,” Hyde-Smith said.

The bill follows the introduction on Monday of Republican-sponsored legislation that would cut funding to UNRWA entirely barring radical reforms to the agency.

Reviews by the State Department and independent watchdog groups routinely find UNRWA using school curricula promoting violent and antisemitic content.

In July 2022, Impact-se, which monitors school curricula, issued a report on UNRWA-produced school materials that noted a grammar lesson that uses the sentence, “The Palestinians sacrifice their blood to liberate Jerusalem,” and “Arabic Drill Cards” for 9th graders that say, “When the [Muslim] nation is negligent in protecting al-Aqsa, then the Jews will dare to defile it.”

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have been widely accused by Israel and by human rights groups of using schools, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, including facilities operated by UNRWA, for terrorist purposes, including storing munitions, sheltering militants, and launching rockets. In November, UNRWA admitted finding a “man-made cavity” under one of its schools that constituted a “neutrality breach against the agency,” though it did not name the groups responsible. UNRWA announced similar discoveries in 2021, 2017, and 2014.

Since taking office in 2021, the Biden Administration has provided $940 million in aid to UNRWA. The Trump administration had previously cut off aid to the agency in 2018.

According to UNRWA, the agency operates 278 schools and 22 primary health care facilities in the Gaza Strip.