The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the main body providing aid to millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants across the Middle East, made an urgent appeal for international support Wednesday, one day after the State Department announced it will withhold more than half its annual funding.
“After decades of generous support, dramatic reduction of US funding to @UNRWA results in most critical financial situation in history of Agency,” the agency s commissioner general, Pierre Krähenbühl, wrote on Twitter. “I call on member states of the United Nations to take a stand & demonstrate to Palestine Refugees that their rights & future matter.”
In a more detailed press statement, Krähenbühl said the U.S. contribution of $60 million is “dramatically below past levels” and jeopardizes the “dignity and human security of millions of Palestine refugees, in need of emergency food assistance and other support.”
In the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza, 42-year-old Ahmed Al-Assar said his family of eight has been receiving aid from UNRWA for almost 12 years.
“I work part-time in construction, but that is not enough to cover all my expenses,” he said Wednesday. “Any reduction of aid would be a death sentence for refugees in Gaza. The work is almost nonexistent. There are not enough jobs. Those who work for the Palestinian Authority receive only a stipend, and Hamas employees get a quarter of their salary.”
Palestinian patients receive medication at a UNRWA-run clinic in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza on Wednesday.
Another camp resident, Zahia Mekdad, described the aid cut as “a purely political decision” that would hurt only ordinary people.
“There has already been a reduction of aid in recent years,” she said. “If it is reduced more, it is the women, children and young people who will suffer, not the politicians.”
The U.S. decision to transfer less than half of a planned $125 million installment to the U.N. aid agency makes good on President Trump s threat earlier this month to withhold funds if the Palestinian Authority refuses to take part in a peace process being prepared by the administration.
The United States pays “the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”
The United States provides about $360 million a year to UNRWA. The State Department made clear Tuesday that further installments will also be held “for future consideration.”
The Palestinians likened Trump s threat to blackmail, seeing it as further proof that his administration is biased toward Israel. Following the president s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel s capital, the Palestinians have said the United States is not an honest broker of peace. The announcement has led to unrest in the region, with one Israeli and at least 17 Palestinians killed.
In a furious speech on Sunday in Ramallah, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas railed against Israel and Trump, calling the nascent U.S. peace deal the “slap of the century.” Palestinians will slap back, he said. za, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
