Doocy and Kirby Spar Over Holding UN ‘Accountable’ Over Allegations Key Agency Helped Hamas

Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy and National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby got into it on Friday after allegations that the United Nations agency providing relief to Palestinians employed workers who took part in Hamas’s brutal attack on southern Israel on October 7th.

The U.S. State Department announced on Friday that it would pause U.S. government funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency after Israel alleged that 12 workers for the agency had direct involvement in the terror attack. During Friday’s White House press briefing, Doocy asked Kirby about a previous statement the latter made about not holding UNRWA “accountable for the depredations of Hamas.” He added: “How about now?”

Kirby responded:

Kirby: Certainly it looks as if, Peter — and again, there’s an investigation going on, so I’ll be careful — but it certainly looks as if, there’s cause to be concerned about the actions of some of the members of UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency. But that does not, and nor should it, impugn the entire agency and the entire, all the body of work that they’re doing. They have helped save literally thousands of lives in Gaza. They do important work. Doesn’t mean that there aren’t some folks in that group that, that need to be punished for potentially these kinds of behavior, but that doesn’t impugn the entire organization.

Doocy: That’s bad though, if there are 12 people who are accused–

Kirby: It’s bad! It’s bad if there’s one!

Doocy: And the U.S. is giving them money. How much money?

Kirby reminded Doocy that the U.S. stopped giving them money, and when asked by Doocy if there was an amount before they stopped, Kirby offered to look into it and get him an answer later. Then Doocy brought the border crisis into the mix:

Doocy: Who does this White House vet? Because we know that people coming across the southern border are not vetted. Now, we know that people that are getting hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. money are not being vetted. So who do you guys check out?

Kirby: It’s interesting that you’re combining the two, the border and this, but let’s just– let me, let me, just give me a second. It’s not like we don’t have a process at the border. And there is a challenge there. And the president does want to get more Border Patrol agents. But this idea that just, there’s no vetting and there’s no proper immigration enforcement going on at the border just does not comport with reality. A lot of work needs to be done to get better at that. But let’s put that aside because that has nothing to do — and, you know, it has nothing to do — with UNRWA in Gaza.

Doocy still pushed, citing the desire for information on how “resources are being used” by the administration:

Doocy: [U]p until today, the U.S. policy then has been “we don’t negotiate with terrorists, but we will give them hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Kirby: Come on now. That’s that’s conflating here. This is not — that’s like saying the whole UNRWA is a terrorist organization. You know, who is a terrorist organization? Hamas, not UNRWA. Now, if they have if the investigation proves that in this case, I think it’s about a dozen employees were assisting Hamas and even to the point of maybe even, you know, involved in hostage taking, then absolutely, they need to be held to account.

Watch the video above via C-SPAN.