30 aug 2018
The US administration has decided to end all funding to UNRWA, the agency that provides humanitarian aid to millions of Palestinian refugees, several informed sources told Foreign Policy magazine.
The decision was taken months after US president Donald Trump scaled back his country’s financial support for UNRWA.
Foreign Policy quoted analysts as saying that the step would cause more hardship and possibly unrest in Gaza, the West Bank, and other parts of the Middle East.
The decision was made at a meeting earlier this month between Trump’s advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and secretary of state Mike Pompeo, according to the sources.
The administration has informed key regional governments in recent weeks of its plan.
The US had been providing UNRWA some $350 million a year, which was more than any other country gave. The sum amounted to more than a quarter of the agency’s $1.2 billion annual budget.
The decision was taken months after US president Donald Trump scaled back his country’s financial support for UNRWA.
Foreign Policy quoted analysts as saying that the step would cause more hardship and possibly unrest in Gaza, the West Bank, and other parts of the Middle East.
The decision was made at a meeting earlier this month between Trump’s advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and secretary of state Mike Pompeo, according to the sources.
The administration has informed key regional governments in recent weeks of its plan.
The US had been providing UNRWA some $350 million a year, which was more than any other country gave. The sum amounted to more than a quarter of the agency’s $1.2 billion annual budget.
29 aug 2018
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U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley vetos an Egyptian-drafted resolution regarding recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem, during the United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East, including Palestine, at U.N. Headquarters in New York City, New York, U.S., December 18, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid – RC19707F9890
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley questioned UN statistics on the number of Palestinian refugees and ruled out the right of return, in the latest move by the Trump administration to challenge how aid is given to the Palestinians. In comments on Tuesday to the Foundation for the Defense of |
Democracies, a research institute in Washington that often sympathizes with Israel, Haley agreed with a source that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was exaggerating the numbers of Palestinian refugees.
She suggested that the Trump administration would consider officially rejecting the the Palestinian claim that all refugees who were displaced between 1947 and 1948 and their descendants should be allowed to return to modern day Israel after a final peace agreement.
“You’re looking at the fact that, yes, there’s an endless number of refugees that continue to get assistance,” Haley said, adding that the Trump White House would not restore its previous funding levels unless the body made dramatic changes.
“We will be a donor if [UNRWA] reforms what it does … if they actually change the number of refugees to an accurate account, we will look back at partnering them,” she said, adding that “the Palestinians continue to bash America” and yet “they have their hand out wanting UNRWA money.”
The United States earlier this year cut its aid to UNRWA to $60 million after pledging $350 million a year.
“If we actually change the number of refugees to an exact number, we will reconsider our partnership,” Haley said.
UNRWA says it provides services to some 5 million Palestinian refugees – mostly descendants of refugees who were displaced and expelled from Palestine during the 1948 war that established Israel on the ruins of the Palestinian people.
Haley said that other Arab states in the Middle East needed to pressure the Palestinians to change course if there were ever to be a final peace accord.
“We have to have them come to the table for a peace agreement,” Haley said. “That’s only going to happen if the region pushes them for that to happen.”
She suggested that the Trump administration would consider officially rejecting the the Palestinian claim that all refugees who were displaced between 1947 and 1948 and their descendants should be allowed to return to modern day Israel after a final peace agreement.
“You’re looking at the fact that, yes, there’s an endless number of refugees that continue to get assistance,” Haley said, adding that the Trump White House would not restore its previous funding levels unless the body made dramatic changes.
“We will be a donor if [UNRWA] reforms what it does … if they actually change the number of refugees to an accurate account, we will look back at partnering them,” she said, adding that “the Palestinians continue to bash America” and yet “they have their hand out wanting UNRWA money.”
The United States earlier this year cut its aid to UNRWA to $60 million after pledging $350 million a year.
“If we actually change the number of refugees to an exact number, we will reconsider our partnership,” Haley said.
UNRWA says it provides services to some 5 million Palestinian refugees – mostly descendants of refugees who were displaced and expelled from Palestine during the 1948 war that established Israel on the ruins of the Palestinian people.
Haley said that other Arab states in the Middle East needed to pressure the Palestinians to change course if there were ever to be a final peace accord.
“We have to have them come to the table for a peace agreement,” Haley said. “That’s only going to happen if the region pushes them for that to happen.”
28 aug 2018
Following its recent decision to cut drastically more than $200 million in aid funds allocated to benefit the Palestinian citizens directly, the Trump administration continues to dismantle the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and strip millions of Palestinians of their refugee status.
“After using humanitarian aid to blackmail and pressure the Palestinian leadership to submit to the empty plan known as “the deal of the century”, the Trump administration plans to commit an immoral scandal against Palestinian refugees by giving itself the right to abolish the historical rights of Palestinian refugees without any legitimacy.
This is a clear looting of our humanity leading to more chaos in the region,” spokesperson for PM Rami Hamdallah’s office, Ahmad Shami, said according to the PNN.
“We reiterate our calls to the international community to stop the gambling schema of Trump and Netanyahu to endorse colonization, apartheid, and denial of Palestinian fundamental rights,” Shami said.
In addition, “to underpin President Abbas initiative to hold an international peace conference to restore hopes for peace through the internationally adopted two-state solution,” he added.
“After using humanitarian aid to blackmail and pressure the Palestinian leadership to submit to the empty plan known as “the deal of the century”, the Trump administration plans to commit an immoral scandal against Palestinian refugees by giving itself the right to abolish the historical rights of Palestinian refugees without any legitimacy.
This is a clear looting of our humanity leading to more chaos in the region,” spokesperson for PM Rami Hamdallah’s office, Ahmad Shami, said according to the PNN.
“We reiterate our calls to the international community to stop the gambling schema of Trump and Netanyahu to endorse colonization, apartheid, and denial of Palestinian fundamental rights,” Shami said.
In addition, “to underpin President Abbas initiative to hold an international peace conference to restore hopes for peace through the internationally adopted two-state solution,” he added.
27 aug 2018
US President Donald Trump’s administration is to take substantial steps against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in general, and against refugees in the West Bank in particular, Hebrew channel 2 revealed on Saturday.
According to the channel, the US is to take several measures against the UNRWA field office in the West Bank, including the suspension of its budget in in the West Bank, and a ban on the transfer of funds from other states, to the UNRWA.
It reported that the US intends to recognize just one tenth of Palestinian refugees — in other words, a half a million refugees — instead of more than 5 million recognized refugees in various countries.
This policy intends to wave the Palestinian right of return. Next September, the US administration is to take the first action in implementing the policy by recognizing just the ancestral population as refugees; but, their descendants will not be recognized.
The second step, according to Al Ray Palestinian media agency is to remove the UNRWA as an international aid agency for Palestine refugees, and to include it in the policy of refugees worldwide.
The United States will also ask Israel to reconsider the UNRWA’s mandate in the West Bank, to ensure that Arab countries are unable to transfer financial aid to the agency instead of US aid.
The channel revealed that Israel considers the US step a historical one, after announcing occupied Jerusalem as a capital of Israel. By waving Palestinians’ right of return and announcing Jerusalem as the capital will create a new reality on the ground.
According to the channel, the US is to take several measures against the UNRWA field office in the West Bank, including the suspension of its budget in in the West Bank, and a ban on the transfer of funds from other states, to the UNRWA.
It reported that the US intends to recognize just one tenth of Palestinian refugees — in other words, a half a million refugees — instead of more than 5 million recognized refugees in various countries.
This policy intends to wave the Palestinian right of return. Next September, the US administration is to take the first action in implementing the policy by recognizing just the ancestral population as refugees; but, their descendants will not be recognized.
The second step, according to Al Ray Palestinian media agency is to remove the UNRWA as an international aid agency for Palestine refugees, and to include it in the policy of refugees worldwide.
The United States will also ask Israel to reconsider the UNRWA’s mandate in the West Bank, to ensure that Arab countries are unable to transfer financial aid to the agency instead of US aid.
The channel revealed that Israel considers the US step a historical one, after announcing occupied Jerusalem as a capital of Israel. By waving Palestinians’ right of return and announcing Jerusalem as the capital will create a new reality on the ground.
26 aug 2018
Washington is set to announce that it will no longer recognize millions of Palestinian refugees' "right of return" to the Israel occupied territories, Israeli media reports.
According to Israel's Hadashot News on Saturday, the administration of US President Donald Trump will make the announcement over the next few days, in which it will claim that only around one million Palestinians are eligible for refugee status.
The claim will contradict UN statistics which classify over five million Palestinians as refugees.
Earlier this month, the American magazine Foreign Policy obtained emails written by Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, to senior US officials in which he pressured Jordan to remove the refugee status of millions of Palestinians in a bid to disrupt UNRWA's work.
Washington has on multiple occasions voiced opposition over treating the descendants of Palestinian refugees as refugees themselves.
In January, the US government announced that it would withhold $65 million of a $125 million aid installment to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
On Friday, the United States also canceled over $200 million in funds for the Palestinian Authority.
Also on Friday, the UNRWA head suggested that the US had slashed the agency's budget to punish the Palestinians for their criticism of Washington's recognition of Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s "capital."
“I can say with a great degree of confidence that the decision was not related to UNRWA’s performance because in November I had received very constructive and openly positive feedback on those issues,” Pierre Kraehenbuehl told the Associated Press.
“A few weeks later, tensions increased around the question of Jerusalem [al-Quds],” he added. “It appears that the humanitarian funding to UNRWA got caught up in the deep polarization around that question.”
US-Palestine ties deteriorated last December, when Trump declared Jerusalem al-Quds as the “capital” of Israel and announced plans to transfer the embassy from Tel Aviv to the occupied city.
Israeli Media Sources: US Plans to Reject Palestinian Right of Return
According to Israeli Hebrew-language media outlets, unnamed officials in the US administration told them that the US Presidents plans in the coming weeks to announce the rejection of the right of return of five million Palestinian refugees, along with a suspension of all funding to the United Nations Refugee and Works Agency, which provides emergency food aid to millions of Palestinian refugees.
Palestinian refugees consist of the 750,000 Palestinians who were forcibly removed from their homes inside what is now Israel during the creation of that state in 1948 and their descendants, as well as the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians forcibly removed in 1967 with the Israeli military takeover of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza and their descendants.
According to +972Mag, “Palestinian refugees are sentenced to life at birth, and for many of them even a winning lottery ticket wouldn’t be enough to buy the right to own property, or enough education to become a lawyer or a doctor. Most of the 5 million refugees registered with UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) in five different host countries live in similar or worse conditions, permanently deprived of most rights ascribed to the citizens of any country.
“There are more than 70 professions denied to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, for example, and over 80 of them in Jordan. In neither country can they work even as a taxi driver, for that would require a driver’s license and most of them cannot legally possess one. In Lebanon, even the materials necessary for building a refugee shack are regulated by law – bricks and a proper roof are too permanent, and thus illegal.”
The U.S. rejection of the Palestinian right of return will make that country’s role as a mediator in the conflict much more difficult to reconcile with its policy position – especially coming in the wake of the December decision by Donald Trump to move the U.S. Consulate from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move which denies the right to exist of the nearly one million Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.
According to the Israeli media reports, the U.S. will reject the United Nations definition of Palestinian refugees, which includes 5.3 million people living in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Instead, the current U.S. administration will recognize just half a million refugees – the elderly survivors of the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) and 1967 Naksa (Setback) themselves, and not their descendants.
For decades, Palestinians living in squalid conditions in refugee camps have anxiously awaited the results of peace talks that have repeatedly promised them a return to their ancestral homes in what is now Israel. The U.S., through various administrations, has frequently acted as a mediator in these peace talks through the years – but has never succeeded in bringing about a lasting peace. The Palestine Liberation Organization, which became the Palestinian Authority in 1993, has continually confronted the U.S. about the one-sidedness of its mediation efforts, in which its representatives have worked with Israeli authorities to bully the Palestinian representatives into accepting terms for peace that negate the basic Palestinian rights.
The three core demands of the Palestinian people are the right of return of the Palestinian refugees, the release of all Palestinian political prisoners, and the unification of Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.
The U.S. has, over the last year and a half of the Trump presidency, has taken steps to effectively deny each of these demands – from the U.S. Embassy move to the support of Israeli imprisonment of Palestinian political leaders and children, to the upcoming plan to deny the Palestinian refugees their right of return.
According to Israel's Hadashot News on Saturday, the administration of US President Donald Trump will make the announcement over the next few days, in which it will claim that only around one million Palestinians are eligible for refugee status.
The claim will contradict UN statistics which classify over five million Palestinians as refugees.
Earlier this month, the American magazine Foreign Policy obtained emails written by Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, to senior US officials in which he pressured Jordan to remove the refugee status of millions of Palestinians in a bid to disrupt UNRWA's work.
Washington has on multiple occasions voiced opposition over treating the descendants of Palestinian refugees as refugees themselves.
In January, the US government announced that it would withhold $65 million of a $125 million aid installment to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
On Friday, the United States also canceled over $200 million in funds for the Palestinian Authority.
Also on Friday, the UNRWA head suggested that the US had slashed the agency's budget to punish the Palestinians for their criticism of Washington's recognition of Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s "capital."
“I can say with a great degree of confidence that the decision was not related to UNRWA’s performance because in November I had received very constructive and openly positive feedback on those issues,” Pierre Kraehenbuehl told the Associated Press.
“A few weeks later, tensions increased around the question of Jerusalem [al-Quds],” he added. “It appears that the humanitarian funding to UNRWA got caught up in the deep polarization around that question.”
US-Palestine ties deteriorated last December, when Trump declared Jerusalem al-Quds as the “capital” of Israel and announced plans to transfer the embassy from Tel Aviv to the occupied city.
Israeli Media Sources: US Plans to Reject Palestinian Right of Return
According to Israeli Hebrew-language media outlets, unnamed officials in the US administration told them that the US Presidents plans in the coming weeks to announce the rejection of the right of return of five million Palestinian refugees, along with a suspension of all funding to the United Nations Refugee and Works Agency, which provides emergency food aid to millions of Palestinian refugees.
Palestinian refugees consist of the 750,000 Palestinians who were forcibly removed from their homes inside what is now Israel during the creation of that state in 1948 and their descendants, as well as the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians forcibly removed in 1967 with the Israeli military takeover of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza and their descendants.
According to +972Mag, “Palestinian refugees are sentenced to life at birth, and for many of them even a winning lottery ticket wouldn’t be enough to buy the right to own property, or enough education to become a lawyer or a doctor. Most of the 5 million refugees registered with UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) in five different host countries live in similar or worse conditions, permanently deprived of most rights ascribed to the citizens of any country.
“There are more than 70 professions denied to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, for example, and over 80 of them in Jordan. In neither country can they work even as a taxi driver, for that would require a driver’s license and most of them cannot legally possess one. In Lebanon, even the materials necessary for building a refugee shack are regulated by law – bricks and a proper roof are too permanent, and thus illegal.”
The U.S. rejection of the Palestinian right of return will make that country’s role as a mediator in the conflict much more difficult to reconcile with its policy position – especially coming in the wake of the December decision by Donald Trump to move the U.S. Consulate from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move which denies the right to exist of the nearly one million Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.
According to the Israeli media reports, the U.S. will reject the United Nations definition of Palestinian refugees, which includes 5.3 million people living in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Instead, the current U.S. administration will recognize just half a million refugees – the elderly survivors of the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) and 1967 Naksa (Setback) themselves, and not their descendants.
For decades, Palestinians living in squalid conditions in refugee camps have anxiously awaited the results of peace talks that have repeatedly promised them a return to their ancestral homes in what is now Israel. The U.S., through various administrations, has frequently acted as a mediator in these peace talks through the years – but has never succeeded in bringing about a lasting peace. The Palestine Liberation Organization, which became the Palestinian Authority in 1993, has continually confronted the U.S. about the one-sidedness of its mediation efforts, in which its representatives have worked with Israeli authorities to bully the Palestinian representatives into accepting terms for peace that negate the basic Palestinian rights.
The three core demands of the Palestinian people are the right of return of the Palestinian refugees, the release of all Palestinian political prisoners, and the unification of Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.
The U.S. has, over the last year and a half of the Trump presidency, has taken steps to effectively deny each of these demands – from the U.S. Embassy move to the support of Israeli imprisonment of Palestinian political leaders and children, to the upcoming plan to deny the Palestinian refugees their right of return.
25 aug 2018
In response to the US decision to cut more than $200 million in bilateral aid to the Palestinians, PLO Executive Committee member said that 'this is cheap blackmail, the rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale.' The Palestinian ambassador in Washington added that 'Trump is abandoning a long-standing American commitment.'
In response to the US decision to cut more than $200 million in aid money to the Palestinians, Hanan Ashrawi, The Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Executive Committee member, said this Saturday morning that the decision "is a cheap blackmail. The rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale.The Palestinian people and leadership will not be threatened, and will not surrender to blackmail."
"The American administration is using cheap blackmail as a political tool. The US administration should be ashamed of constant bullying and punishment of a people under occupation. The US has already demonstrated its depravity in its collusion with the Israeli occupation, allowing Israel to steal land and resources, and now it is displaying economic viciousness by punishing the Palestinian victims of the occupation," Ashrawi added.
Earlier Saturday, the Palestinian ambassador to the United States, Husam Zumlut, referred to the US State Department's decision: "This is an anti-peace decision that symbolizes the rejection of the two-state vision and following Netanyahu's agenda. The current US administration has forsaken a long-standing American commitment to the Palestinian people." Zumlut also described the move as a "political extortion".
On Friday, The US administration has decided to cut more than $200 million in bilateral aid to the Palestinians, following a review of the funding for projects in the West Bank and Gaza.
The department notified US Congress of the decision in a brief, three-paragraph notice sent first to lawmakers and then to reporters. It said the administration will redirect the money to "high priority projects elsewhere."
The move comes as President Donald Trump and his Middle East point men, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, staff up their office to prepare for the rollout of a much-vaunted but as yet unclear peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.
"At the direction of President Trump, we have undertaken a review of US assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with US national interests and provide value to the US taxpayer. As a result of that review, at the direction of the president, we will redirect more than $200 million ... originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza," the US statement read.
"This decision takes into account the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance in Gaza, where Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza's citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation," the announcement read, without providing additional details.
The US notice did not give an exact amount of the funds to be cut, but said they had been approved in 2017.
The US had planned to give the Palestinians $251 million for good governance, health, education and funding for civil society in the current 2018 budget year that ends on Sept.30. But with just over a month to go before that money must be used, reprogrammed to other areas or returned to Treasury, less than half has actually been spent. Earlier this month, the department had released about $60 million of the 2018 money for security projects that encourage cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
The announcement does not include some $65 million in frozen US funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and Lebanon. However, the Trump administration is extremely skeptical of UNRWA and that money is also likely to be reprogrammed, according to officials.
Friday's decision follows a similar decision last week in which the State Department announced that it was redirecting $230 million dollars in aid that had been planned for stabilization programs in liberated areas of Syria.
In that case, however, the department said the loss of US funding would be more than offset by other nations, including Saudi Arabia, which announced a $150 million contribution for Syria stabilization just hours before the American announcement.
In response to the US decision to cut more than $200 million in aid money to the Palestinians, Hanan Ashrawi, The Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Executive Committee member, said this Saturday morning that the decision "is a cheap blackmail. The rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale.The Palestinian people and leadership will not be threatened, and will not surrender to blackmail."
"The American administration is using cheap blackmail as a political tool. The US administration should be ashamed of constant bullying and punishment of a people under occupation. The US has already demonstrated its depravity in its collusion with the Israeli occupation, allowing Israel to steal land and resources, and now it is displaying economic viciousness by punishing the Palestinian victims of the occupation," Ashrawi added.
Earlier Saturday, the Palestinian ambassador to the United States, Husam Zumlut, referred to the US State Department's decision: "This is an anti-peace decision that symbolizes the rejection of the two-state vision and following Netanyahu's agenda. The current US administration has forsaken a long-standing American commitment to the Palestinian people." Zumlut also described the move as a "political extortion".
On Friday, The US administration has decided to cut more than $200 million in bilateral aid to the Palestinians, following a review of the funding for projects in the West Bank and Gaza.
The department notified US Congress of the decision in a brief, three-paragraph notice sent first to lawmakers and then to reporters. It said the administration will redirect the money to "high priority projects elsewhere."
The move comes as President Donald Trump and his Middle East point men, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, staff up their office to prepare for the rollout of a much-vaunted but as yet unclear peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.
"At the direction of President Trump, we have undertaken a review of US assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with US national interests and provide value to the US taxpayer. As a result of that review, at the direction of the president, we will redirect more than $200 million ... originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza," the US statement read.
"This decision takes into account the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance in Gaza, where Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza's citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation," the announcement read, without providing additional details.
The US notice did not give an exact amount of the funds to be cut, but said they had been approved in 2017.
The US had planned to give the Palestinians $251 million for good governance, health, education and funding for civil society in the current 2018 budget year that ends on Sept.30. But with just over a month to go before that money must be used, reprogrammed to other areas or returned to Treasury, less than half has actually been spent. Earlier this month, the department had released about $60 million of the 2018 money for security projects that encourage cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
The announcement does not include some $65 million in frozen US funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and Lebanon. However, the Trump administration is extremely skeptical of UNRWA and that money is also likely to be reprogrammed, according to officials.
Friday's decision follows a similar decision last week in which the State Department announced that it was redirecting $230 million dollars in aid that had been planned for stabilization programs in liberated areas of Syria.
In that case, however, the department said the loss of US funding would be more than offset by other nations, including Saudi Arabia, which announced a $150 million contribution for Syria stabilization just hours before the American announcement.
The U.S. Administration of Donald Trump said it decided to cut $200 Million of the aid budget to the Palestinians, which was approved earlier this year.
Israeli daily Haaretz has reported that most of the money Trump is cutting was not meant for the Palestinian Authority, but was supposed to be used in supporting humanitarian and economic projects in the occupied territories.
Haaretz quoted a U.S. State Department official claiming that the decision is part of what he called challenges the International Community faces when it comes to providing the needed humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians in Gaza, because the coastal region is “controlled by Hamas, which is also endangering them, in addition to degrading the economic and humanitarian situation.”
It is worth mentioning that, out of the previously approved $250 Million in aid to the Palestinians for this fiscal year; the U.S. Administration only released dozens of millions to support the Palestinian Security Forces in the occupied West Bank.
The decision to cut $200 Million is part of what was also described as internal review by the Trump Administration, but now, the money will instead be transferred to other countries.
Trump has been claiming that, in return to the U.S. Embassy move to occupied Jerusalem, the Palestinians will “get something good,” and that it is “their turn to be receiving something.”
It is worth mentioning that the relations between Washington and the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, has been severed since Trump announced the transfer of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in direct violation of International Law.
Meanwhile, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) described the aid cut as a “cheep blackmail,” which is being used as a “political tool against the Palestinians.”
She slammed Trump and his Administration, describing them as bullies, especially since they are punishing the ordinary Palestinians, living under the illegal Israeli occupation.
Since March 30th, 2018, 171 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, in addition to 18300 who were injured.
Most of the Palestinians were killed in non-violent protests, which began on March 30th, 2018, call for ending the 12-year-long Israeli blockade of Gaza and for the right of return of the refugees.
Many of the casualties occurred on May 14, when Israeli forces attacked Palestinian protesters marking the 70th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of historical Palestine and the ensuing ethnic cleansing of half a million Palestinian refugees.
It also marked the date that the Trump chose to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, thus denying the right to exist for the nearly one million Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.
Israeli daily Haaretz has reported that most of the money Trump is cutting was not meant for the Palestinian Authority, but was supposed to be used in supporting humanitarian and economic projects in the occupied territories.
Haaretz quoted a U.S. State Department official claiming that the decision is part of what he called challenges the International Community faces when it comes to providing the needed humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians in Gaza, because the coastal region is “controlled by Hamas, which is also endangering them, in addition to degrading the economic and humanitarian situation.”
It is worth mentioning that, out of the previously approved $250 Million in aid to the Palestinians for this fiscal year; the U.S. Administration only released dozens of millions to support the Palestinian Security Forces in the occupied West Bank.
The decision to cut $200 Million is part of what was also described as internal review by the Trump Administration, but now, the money will instead be transferred to other countries.
Trump has been claiming that, in return to the U.S. Embassy move to occupied Jerusalem, the Palestinians will “get something good,” and that it is “their turn to be receiving something.”
It is worth mentioning that the relations between Washington and the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, has been severed since Trump announced the transfer of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in direct violation of International Law.
Meanwhile, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) described the aid cut as a “cheep blackmail,” which is being used as a “political tool against the Palestinians.”
She slammed Trump and his Administration, describing them as bullies, especially since they are punishing the ordinary Palestinians, living under the illegal Israeli occupation.
Since March 30th, 2018, 171 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, in addition to 18300 who were injured.
Most of the Palestinians were killed in non-violent protests, which began on March 30th, 2018, call for ending the 12-year-long Israeli blockade of Gaza and for the right of return of the refugees.
Many of the casualties occurred on May 14, when Israeli forces attacked Palestinian protesters marking the 70th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of historical Palestine and the ensuing ethnic cleansing of half a million Palestinian refugees.
It also marked the date that the Trump chose to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, thus denying the right to exist for the nearly one million Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.
