Several US senators are attempting to pass into law a new bill introduced in the Congress that recognizes only 40000 Palestinian refugees instead of 5.3 million refugees.
The newly introduced bill would ensure that the funds contributed to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) would go towards the resettlement of Palestinians displaced in the aftermath of the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) and not their descendants – who are a total number of 5.3 million people.
The bill was initiated by Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn who entitled it as “The UNRWA Reform and Refugee Support Act.”
Lamborn said in a statement that the “refugee status is not something that can be handed down from generation to generation” referring to the descendants of Palestinian refugees who were born and are living in other countries.
The bill was allegedly introduced to differentiate between the original Palestinian refugees who have the right to return after being displaced from their homes from their descendants.
Lamborn demanded that UNRWA “figures out the actual number of true Palestinian refugees” claiming that the total is not correct.
“Palestinians in Gaza are not refugees; they are a population suffering under the Hamas terror regime whose leaders take aid money and instead of building schools and hospitals build terror tunnels and send rockets hidden under UNRWA schools in Gaza into kindergartens in Israel” the US congressman further alleged.
