UN Agency for Palestine Refugee Launches Global Funding Push after US Aid Cuts

Rasa - The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) launched on Monday a global fundraising campaign to sustain resources for its education, health and other assistance programmes.

News ID: 435983

Date: 25 January 2018 - 01:04

RNA - “I wish to confirm to all Palestine refugees that UNRWA schools […] will remain open [and] health care, and other services will be provided. It is a huge challenge, but it is absolutely imperative,” Pierre Krähenbuhl, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, said in Gaza, launching the campaign, ‘#DignityIsPriceless’, UN News Center reported.

The UN agency said the reduction in US funding could have a significant impact on the daily lives of millions of vulnerable Palestine refugees across Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank including East Jerusalem.

It added that basic education for 525,000 boys and girls at over 700 UNRWA schools; emergency food and cash assistance to 1.7 million Palestine refugees; access to primary health care for 3 million refugees, including pre-natal care; and dignity and human security for 5.3 million refugees, have been endangered as result of the limited funding.

The UNRWA chief underscored that the agency’s mandate is “firmly protected” in a UN General Assembly resolution and called on “all people of good will, all institutions, members of the Palestinian diaspora, private companies, and foundations” to extend their support to the campaign.

Washington announced that it would withhold about half the initial aid it planned to give a UN agency that serves the Palestinians, after US President Donald Trump questioned the value of such funding.

The US State Department said the United States would provide $60 million to the UN Relief and Welfare Agency (UNRWA) while withholding a further $65 million for now, adding that the aid group needed to make unspecified reforms.

Washington also withheld another payment to the UN's relief agency for Palestinian refugees, as $45 million dollars pledged for food aid is now frozen.

Trump had said the US is getting “no appreciation or respect” from the Palestinians though it sends “hundreds of millions of dollars” a year, stressing that “They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel".

“We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table,” he added, saying “But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then stressed that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) needs to pass away from the world, amid reports that Israel really doesn't want the US to stop funding the organization.

The tweets come after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected Trump’s move to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, stressing that the US can no longer be considered an honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

The US President announced early December 2017 that Washington would be recognizing Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s capital, stressing that the United States would relocate the embassy in the occupied lands from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem al-Quds.

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