American taxpayers should not bankroll refugee camps that Iranian-backed terrorists have turned into operational sanctuaries.
Since 1950, Washington has poured more than $7.3 billion into sustaining Palestinian refugee camps, with the largest share supporting Gaza operations. Certainly, this has subsidized the geography of permanent conflict: camps that Arab governments refuse to solve, terrorists exploit, and Iran converts into pressure points against its neighbors.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) does not resettle refugees; it perpetuates their status by design. Maliciously, Arab states blocked any resettlement mandate, so the agency registers descendants as refugees in perpetuity. That is why UNRWA’s rolls exploded from roughly 700,000 in 1948 to nearly 6 million today — turning its camps into permanent warehouses of grievance and political blackmail.
The regional record is not ambiguous. In 1970, the Palestine Liberation Organization tried to overthrow Jordan’s government through hijackings and armed control of the camps. Jordanian forces killed approximately 3,400 terrorists and expelled the rest. They relocated to Lebanon, where the insurgent activities in their refugee camps helped trigger the 1975 civil war that killed roughly 150,000 people (after this, Lebanon and Syria refused to grant citizenship to the Palestinians on their soil).
Those camps now operate as assets for Tehran.
In Gaza, years of support for camp services preceded the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (both Iranian-backed). UNRWA employees participated in the attacks, and its schools have long promoted incitement against Israel and the West. These failures make continued funding indefensible.
In the West Bank, the Palestinian Jenin refugee camp has become the modern “Camp Bucca” terrorism Mecca. Israeli forces have conducted repeated raids, including the July 2023 operation that struck joint command centers and killed at least eight terrorists from Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the not well-known but highly dangerous Jenin Brigades. This camp serves as an operations room for attacks, recruitment, and Iranian encouragement disguised as “resistance.”
In Lebanon, Ain al-Hilweh shows the same pathology. The largest Palestinian refugee camp hosts armed factions, weapons stockpiles, drug-trafficking networks, and elements aligned with Iranian-backed groups. Lebanese authorities largely stay on the sidelines, treating it as a sovereign-free zone.
Geostrategically, American support for these camps subsidizes the human and logistical infrastructure of Iran’s proxy network. It relieves Arab governments of responsibility, blocks genuine resettlement, and signals to adversaries that Washington will underwrite terrain from which its enemies operate.
In competition with China and Russia, every dollar tied to perpetual camps is unavailable for priorities that strengthen American power. The policy also erodes deterrence as allies watch U.S. resources flow into systems that generate the threats they must confront.
Washington must permanently cut all funding to UNRWA and the camp system it sustains. Any future support must be strictly bilateral, time-limited, and conditioned on host governments granting verified residency or citizenship paths only to populations that pass rigorous U.S. biometric and intelligence vetting to exclude terrorists. Above all, U.S. policy must reject the hereditary refugee model that has artificially perpetuated this crisis across generations.
HEGSETH SAYS MILITARY IN POSITION TO RESTART OPERATIONS AGAINST IRAN ‘IF WE NEED TO’
President Donald Trump should permanently end U.S. support for the camps in Jenin, Gaza, and Ain al-Hilweh, apply maximum diplomatic and economic pressure on their enablers, and back Israeli operations targeting terrorism infrastructure inside them. Future U.S. security commitments or support for normalization must be conditioned on the camps’ complete demilitarization and permanent closure.
The current approach strengthens Iran. These steps replace open-ended subsidies with leverage that weakens Iranian networks, eases pressure on partners, and aligns policy with regional realities instead of perpetual grievance.
Jose Lev Alvarez is an American–Israeli scholar specializing in international security policy. A multilingual veteran of the IDF special forces and the U.S. Army, he holds three master’s degrees, a medical degree, and is completing a Ph.D. in Intelligence and Global Security in the Washington, D.C., area.