Earlier Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and continuing the freeze on funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which Israel has baselessly accused of being a terrorist organization.

In a fact sheet viewed by multiple media outlets, the White House asserted that UNHRC “has not fulfilled its purpose and continues to be used as a protective body for countries committing horrific human rights violations.”

“The UNHRC has demonstrated consistent bias against Israel, focusing on it unfairly and disproportionately in council proceedings,” the White House continued. “In 2018, the year President Trump withdrew from the UNHRC in his first administration, the organization passed more resolutions condemning Israel than Syria, Iran, and North Korea combined.”

UNHRC spokesperson Pascal Sim noted Tuesday that the U.S. has been an observer state, not a UNHRC member, since January 1, and according to U.N. rules, it cannot “technically withdraw from an intergovernmental body that is no longer part of.”

The UNRWA funding pause is based on Israeli claims—reportedly extracted from Palestinian prisoners in an interrogation regime rife with torture and abuse—that a dozen of the agency’s more than 13,000 workers in Gaza were involved in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack. These claims prompted numerous nations including the United States to cut off funding for UNRWA last year. The U.S. had been UNRWA’s biggest benefactor, providing $300-400 million annually to the lifesaving organization.

UNRWA fired nine employees in response to Israel’s claim, even as the agency admitted there was no evidence linking the staffers to October 7. Faced with this lack of evidence, the European Union and countries including Japan, Germany, Canada, and Australia reinstated funding for UNRWA. Last March, then-U.S. President Joe Biden signed a bill prohibiting American funding for the agency.

Israeli lawmakers have also banned UNRWA from operating in Israel, severely hampering the agency’s ability to carry out its mission throughout Palestine, including in Gaza and the illegally occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

According to the most recent UNRWA situation report, at least 272 of the agency’s workers have been killed by Israeli forces, which since October 2023 have bombed numerous schools, shelters, and other facilities used by the agency.

William Deere, the director of UNRWA’s Washington, D.C. office, toldPBS earlier this week that “there is no alternative to UNRWA.”

“UNRWA performs a unique function in the U.N. system,” Deere explained. “We are a direct service provider. We run… a healthcare network, we run an education system, we provide relief and social services.”

As U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said last month, “UNRWA has been carrying out activities in the occupied Palestinian territory for more than 70 years… and has thus accumulated unparalleled experience in providing assistance that is tailored to the specific needs of Palestine refugees.”

Trump’s executive order preceded his meeting with Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court after it issued arrest warrants for him and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, last November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The tribunal also issued a warrant for Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.

The U.S. president’s directives also followed his January freeze on foreign aid to countries except for Israel and Egypt, and his plan to shut down the United States Agency for International Development.