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political season is immigration. >> we invite you to share your book by going to our website c-span/.org, record 30-second video telling us your issue and why. c-span voices 2024, be a part of the conversation. >> welcome back to washington journal we are joined now by vivian solema, national reporter for the washington journal. vivian, welcome. >> good to be with you. >> before we get to our topic which is the un relief agency in gaza i want to ask you about the deadly drone attack in jordan. the president has said that he has decided how. he's going to respond, what have you heard? >> so obviously when it comes to

military operations but what we have learned fromm sources is that we are looking at some sort of multi-prong approach, appeared response to the attacks perhaps, you know, an aerial strike of some kind. we know that the islamic resistance group which is under the proiranian militia umbrella within iraq, they are the ones that have claimed responsibility so at least they know who they are going after to retaliate against but obviously the stakes are very high. the administration saying from the get-go, since october 7th attacks that it did not want to draw iran into a war nor does it want to be drawn into a war with iran or anyone else but now there's been a direct hit on u.s. military personnel so the president is in predicament where he has to respond somehow but also doesn't want to do so in a way that could really just

trigger a widespread war. >> turning to the allegations against un relief agency in gaza, firstag explain what thats and un relief and work agencies and refugees, what it is and what its mission? >> the short name is that it was created shortly after israel was established and began to operate in 1950 and provide relief for palestinian refugees. there was a major refugee crisis at the time and they were providing everything from education to food to health care and they are in united nations and they have beenn operating nw for over 70 years, over that time there has been allegations and infiltration,

extremist groups were trying to take advantage or manipulate its access, however, the un has pushed back on that the and defended both to help provide life-saving support. you see the situation absolutely catastrophic in gaza and the potential for famine now, we are entering point of famine. people are not receiving any basic health care, any food and -- and basic needs and onra is the last hope for them which has been already financially compromised in recent years, the trump administration had withdrawn u.s. support from onra in 2018 and so they were already struggling before this crisis

but, of course, because of enormous, enormous demand for humanitarian relief right now. they were struggling and saying that they were going to need billions of dollars to be able to meet that need and so friday the, the head of onra came out and admitted that they were investigating 12 staffers. >> let's get in vivian to specific allegations. >> yes, on friday onra came out east coast time in the u.s. and said that they were investigating 12 staffers who may have potential links to hamas and the group particularly that orchestrated the october 7th attacks, very shocking accusation and revelation that onra had to put out there and it was apparently due to conversations that they have been having the israeli

government, shared w intelligene to review that they were concerned not just about the 12 but aboutth hundreds that may he links either directly or indirectly to relatives or have crossed paths with people. remember the gazapl strip is not very big in its population, you know, even though it was in the millions that people were stilli government was saying that they found multiple, hundreds potentially connections and onra said, well, what we see is 12 people who are of concerned, contract for immediately released from the contact immediately and onra was investigating, however, most of the major donor countries announced quickly that they were going to withhold any t additiol aid to onra until that

investigation was completely. >> i will pick out on the screen now, vivian, the ten countries that have temporarily at least suspended funding, u.s., israel, finland, austria and japan, they said that that is being suspended pending that investigation that you were just talking about but you mentioned the 12 that were fired, apparently the dossier says 6 actually participated. this is the allegation, participated in the october 7th attack in israel, kidnapping and other things. what have you learned about that and have you seen that dossier? >> i haven't seen the dossier yet but certainly being investigated right now and onra says it's taking these the allegations very seriously take

a catastrophic situation and make it so much worse. they are take thing it very seriously and they are looking into it. onra not pushing back and the number of countries that have withheld aid, you listed a few of them but there are many more than that. yesterday state department spokesman miller came out to the positive ewe and he really down played and said that the vast majority of the pool of aid that

the united states has to give to onra that is congressionally approved from onra most of it has been allocated and downplayed the impact but right now every single dollar helps and that's what onra has been saying and they cannot afford to lose a single dollar at this stage because the needs and the demand for humanitarian assistance is so dire. >> if you'd like to join our conversation, you can do so on online, (202)748-8000, republicans-8 (202)748-8001. independents i (202)748-8002. >> over the weekend the united nations is taking swift action following extremely serious allegations made against several staff members from onra.

the contracts of those staff members directly involved have been terminated as we told you on friday. an investigation by the un's office of internal oversight services was immediately sactivated. the secretary general has remained very active on this issue throughout thes weekend ad this morning. a few moments ago he met with the undersecretary general head of oios to ensure that the investigation will be done swiftly and efficiently as possible. any employee involved in acts of terror will be held accountable including through criminal prosecution and as we said the secretary is ready to cooperate with competent authority to prosecute the individuals in line with the secretary's normal procedural for such cooperation.

we spoke a short while ago and president sisi of egypt whom you will speak a little bit later this afternoon. the secretary is personally horrified by the accusations against employees of onra but his message to donors especially those who have suspended the cop contribution is to at least guaranty the continuity onra's operations as we have tens of thousands of dedicated staff working throughout the region, the dire needs of the desperate population they serve must be met. at thiss point the outward for onra and millions of people it serves not only in gaza but in east jerusalem, in the west bank, lebanon and syria is very bleak. >> and vivian, you said that the secretary general was personally horrified, you know, and as you said it goes beyond the 12 individuals. it could be a lot of people within that organization that

are similar pa debt thetic to hamas and to their tactic. you know, you've got that issue and on the other hand we know the humanitarian situation in gaza is dire, so what happens next? >> the political rhetoric that we are hearing, the back and forth about whether or not, you know, a, u.s. has done enough and b what the united nations' role have in improving the situation and onra, you know, has come under fire before but the fact ofom the matter is thaa lot of humanitarian organizations around the world would say that what we hear now as much as is shocking and very troubling it should not overshadow the wonderful work that they have done to millions

of palestinians throughout the decade and so this is something that they are having to grapple with right now the. i speak to the people, been speaking to people all weekend who say the last thing that onra needed right now. financially they were struggling already. they had bumps in the road with the reputation the and now this. and so obviously it's something that's going to really hurt their reputation moving forward but at the end of the day i think you talked to the u.s. officials who understand that the need for humanitarian assistance is one that cannot be compromised in any circumstances under conditions, for example, stopping onra from working is not just in the discussion right now because they know folks that right now that is not an option. they really need to get that humanitarian aassistance to as many people as possible and so it's really not an easy situation but nor is the

humanitarian crisis in gaza. the biden administration has really come under fire for temp thede rarely withhold aid especially from progressives who say that he already hadn't done enough to help the people of gaza and as a result this soaring civilian death toll in the last few months and so this is basically added fuel to that fire and cause for ceasefire getting louder and louder and the combination of the biden administration for not doingd enough among especially that group and his party getting louder. >> let's talk to callers. >> hi, there. i just --

[inaudible] >> were surrounded by israeli and shot up and then also -- [inaudible] >> to stop genocidal action. they just had a conference where they settlement and also i just -- what i really want to say the 3 black soldiers that died in jordan. to my people do not take at a time to be patriotic. why do we have to serve in the military if we have sold the country for century. think about that because you think of black history month.

have a good morning. >> let's go to louis in new jersey, independent. go ahead, louis. >> good morning, i have two questions. if those people were immediately fired how come they weren't immediately arrested? my secondd question, how come te prez and especially c-span were cricket about american arrested in ukraine for writing opposition, i guess, opposition stories against zelenskyy, how come we didn't get that guy the? he was arrested, brutalized and murder in ukraine prison? thank you. >> vivian, do you know anything about that in ukraine? >> i have. this is the first time hearing about it. intrigued. i will have to look into that. thanks for flagging. >> hey, he also asks why weren't the members of onra arrested

rather than just being fired? >> i believe that there's still an investigation underway and so, you know, they have terminated their contracts for the time being just to sort of prevent them from having access to any onra related activities while they do the investigation but, you know, i -- it's possible that that would be coming down the lines. vivian, if you could give a quick history of how and when onraiv started. did they begin at specifically to help palestinian refugees or was it someone else? number 2, have the arab countries, are very wealthy, have they given any reasons why theyre not willing to step up right now and fill up the gap of

u.s. funding and while we pull back and assess the members of the onra group. can we ask the arab countries to step up and i think king abdul of egypt said that they will not accept refugees. no one seems to want to help to palestinians while taking them into country while israel tries to get rid of hamas. question.uick i believe that hamas has been running the schools since the mid 2000, 2005 and indoctrinating people with hatred of israel. have they asked themselves, do we have any precedent of battle like this going on and what should we do in the past. how do we try to get rid of a

terrorist country without hurting civilians. what inputut have they given aso a better way toha do it. >> a lot of questions there, vivian. >> i'm happy to -- i had talked a little bit about the history earlier but i'm happy to recap quickly if you're just tune thing in. onra created in 1949 just after the creation and state of israel being created. they weren'tra created to addres the problems with palestinian refugees in particular and that has been their core mission under the un. oh dear, now i'm going to forget all of your questions. >> the arab countries, why haven't they stepped up? >> they have.

egypt has a refugee camp in gaza and has been providing aid. jordan has done air drops of food and other aid to gaza and the emirates have taken some actions and so they have been doing, they have been doing things their own way in addition to, in addition to financial funding and things like that and so they might not necessarily be putting more money in onra, for example, but they do have their own activities, the egyptians red cross is very active and -- and the egyptian government has also been trying to get aid across the border with gaza. >> how about accepting refugees into the country? >> and so this is an ongoing gdebate frankly and it's a complicated one. i could possibly sit here and talk about it for the entire show.ul in particular egypt has been pushed and there's a number of

israeli lawmakers even that have been saying egypt should take the gaza, the people of gaza, the civilians and shelter them at least through the duration of the war, some of the more right ring said take them for good which has been frowned upon even by the united states. the problem with that is that egypt has had over -- over recent debate they've had history with extremism and the egyptians are weary of groups like hamas and muslim brotherhood fomenting for starters. secondly, they have seen that when that happens, refugees go temporarily supposedly to egypt it ends up being one-way ticket either because homes are destroyed and egypt feels like it's too much of a burden. it's home to an enormous, enormous number of refugees, remember in egypt there's war to its east in gaza to itself,

sudan and to its west in libya and so they are really heavily burdened already and doing what they can although i think the u.s. would like to see them do more. same for jordan, jordan, the majority of jordan's population is actually palestinian if you're not aware of that with the west bank being on its border. it has over the decades become home to o millions and millionsf palestinians, in fact, the queen of jordan, you mentioned king abdul, king jordan is palestinian and that's to offer context there. you mentioned the schools, i'm glad that you raised that. hamas was controlling the government in gaza and so, you know, we say that they run the health ministry and they run the schools. you have to understand andea please take my word for it because i'm a reporter who has worked in gaza, the majority of

people that i have spoken to and americans question backt and ph back on this but the majority of palestinians that i have spoken to believeke that they would hae been better without hamas. it wasn't that they were pounding or hammering them to -- to hate israel, remember, gaza has gone through extreme periods of occupation and blockades and so the conditions were making it so that the palestinian people were resenting israel for those conditions but it was not sort of a -- for many they just wanted to live and so i'm not saying that people didn't hate israel but -- gaza but what i'm saying is many of them also hate hamas and it's important to remember that in that context.

>> vivian i know that your time is running out and you have a lot going on but can you stick a little bit longer to the take more calls? >> only for you. pamela, miami florida, independent. >> thank you for having me on. >> just a little background on history, there were an equal number of jewish refugees, excuse me, on the war of independence about 700,000 during the 1948 to 1950 conflict and all of them were absorbed by

israel. onra has act today prolong the conflict over 75 years. today only 30,000 direct ascendants refugee descendants are alive and by the way, other arab countries don't allow citizenship to palestinians except for jordan. >> no, ma'am, that's incorrect. i have to correct you. the united arab emirates, qatar andd others grant citizenship, a lot of other countries. >> in 75 years i'm sure they have. in any ways, onra is a totally corrupt organization and that played a deadly role on october 7th and i think salam is being kind to them and covering up for them and i think everyone should do their homework and other crimes that onra has been responsible for b and incredibly

corrupt as we know as most organizations are. certainly they do good things and provide humanitarian aid but you have to wonder why after 75 years do we still have a huge so-called refugee problem. it's not necessarily due to israel. >> so pamela mentioned funding. as you respond to that, vivian, i will put on the screen the funding for for 2022 total funding 1.17 billion and the top funders are on your screen with the united states being at the top at 344 million followed by germany. go ahead, vivian. >> so i have seen the accusations like the one that you posed against onra regarding wanting to prolong the -- the refugee crisis. i assure you that there have been, many other factors prolonging the refugee crisis

for palestinians and i don't, you know, to my knowledge and based on reporting and having lived in israel and worked in the west bank in gaza, i have seen firsthand, you know, the -- in some cases the demolition of homes and, you know, the expansion of settler communities in the west bank which the u.s. right now is very concerned about. you also have in gaza multiple wars which have destroyed homes and have created an enormous refugee crisis also remember keep in mind that the borders of israel were moving over the decades because of sere of wars with manyf arab countries befoe egypt and jordan made peace with israel and, you know, there were a number of factors that fueled the refugee crisis of the palestinians and so, you know, as far as these accusations go that onra sought to prolong the

refugee sis sis i see no evidence of that although i have seen people putting those accusations out there on twitter and other social media. >> all right, one more call, winston, columbus, ohio, democrat. >> hi, thanks for letting me on and i appreciate vivian for sticking around. i did have a question because it seems like this whole conversation is gone on and not mention the fact that israel has been found to be potentially doing a genocide by the international court of justice. this was like the furthest -- like -- like the furthest decision that they could make towards saying that israel is committingin a genocide right nw and so the assistance of weapons, that means the united states government, the biden administration is potentially assisting in genocide but cutting off unra funding which is largely responsible for

helping people to get food in an area that is deemed as -- as famine conditions, cut canning off aid to the organization that is feeding them, that is assisting in the famine, assisting in the potential genocide. so i do wonder, vivian, do you have, can you speak a little bit at all to the international court of justice, the fact that israel is one of what, like, under a dozen countries that have ever been held to be potentially committing genocide and --mm and because it doesn't make any sense how 12 people get alleged to do something, a whole organization gets defunded when the international court of justice looks at the evidence, sees that the israeli prime minister and other people in thl claims that's the intent, 30,000 civilians killed complete, like

all of northern gaza to the grnd. so just to correct you, winston, please. it did, however, say that the israelis need to do more to -- to take action immediately to prevent additional civilian lives lost and they were very concerned about that but they did not go as far as to find genocide because, you know, you mentioned intent, that is something that they felt was not -- was noting? that they established with the evidence available. that being said, you know, you are right to question the u.s. military aid, israel has been essentially one of the largest if not the largest at times

recipients of u.s. military aid for several decades now and there has been a growing group of -- of lawmakers mainly democrats in both the senate and the house led very much by bernie sanders calling for a review and more scrutiny of the u.s. aid to israel over concerns that u.s. aid -- u.s. military aid, u.s. weapons are being used to the, you know, in its war where we see this enormous civil cannian death toll. that for the most part so far has been rejected by the administration and by most lawmakers on the hill who believe that come thick or thin the u.s. needs to continue to support israel because it is its biggest andon most important aly in the region, in the middle east but als

u.s. national security and so that really has not gained a lot of traction beyond that group of lawmakers who are largely progressive. that being said the biden administration is growing frustrated and sources that i talk to, you know, understand that they have this enormous leverage over israel and could potentially pull the plug if they were to reach a point where they say, you know, enough is enough too many people have died. they're not there as far as anyone i talked to who says that's nott going to happen bua conversation behind the scenes in any corridor here in washington. something that a lot ofwa people are concerned about and definitely a lingering question. for now it remains a question and i don't see it translating into action.

>> all right, vivian salama, reporter for the wall street journal. you can find her reporting at wsj.com. vivian, thank you so much. nice to talk to you. >> thanks. >> c-span's washington journal, live forum involving you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics the and public policy from washington, d.c. and across the country coming up thursday morning pennsylvania democratic congresswoman chrisy and air force veteran and member of the armed services and intelligence committees discusses the drone attack on u.s. forces in jordan, immigration and border security and aid to ukraine and israel. c-span's washington journal join in the conversation live a 7:00n

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