Palestinians decry US decision to end aid for agency

A U.S. decision to cut all the funding for the UN’s Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA, has invited a storm of condemnations inside the Palestinian territories.

“The U.S. has no right to support and bless theft of Palestinian land and illegitimate Israeli colonialism on Palestinian land,” Saeb Erekat, the Secretary-General of the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said in a statement on Saturday.

“It has no right to support and bless the theft of Jerusalem and its annexation to Israel,” he said.

Erekat said the U.S. decisions to end funding for UNRWA “embody annihilation of international law and security and stability in the region”.

“They are gifts for radical forces and terrorism in the region,” he said, going on to call on the international community to reject the U.S. move and provide all possible aid to UNRWA in respect of the UN resolution establishing the agency until the issue of refugees resolved.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, for his part, ruled out that the U.S. move would lead to dismantle UNRWA or marginalize the issue of Palestinian refugees.

“On the contrary, this decision will lead to strong responses from several states that will not accept the U.S. policy of thuggery against refugees,” al-Maliki said in a statement.

“Many countries will step up to protect the agency from [U.S. President Donald] Trump and his administration’s attack,” he added.

On Friday, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Washington "will no longer commit further funding" for UNRWA.

"The fundamental business model and fiscal practices that have marked UNRWA for years – tied to UNRWA’s endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries – is simply unsustainable and has been in crisis mode for many years," Nauert said.

The U.S. was by far UNRWA's largest funder, giving $350 million annually, or about one-quarter of the agency's budget.

Established in 1949, UNRWA provides critical aid to Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

‘Inhumane, reckless’

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of PLO’s executive committee, described the U.S. aid cut as “inhumane and reckless”.

“The US administration's decision to terminate all funding to UNRWA is a cruel and irresponsible move targeting the most vulnerable segment of Palestinian society,” Ashrawi said in statements cited by the official Wafa news agency.

Palestinian resistance group Hamas, meanwhile, said the U.S. decision aims to eliminate the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their land.

This is a “dangerous American escalation against the Palestinian people”, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement.

It “reflects the Zionist background of the current American leadership, which became an enemy to the Palestinian people as well as the [Arab and Islamic] nation,” he said.

Abu Zuhri, however, stressed that "the Palestinian people will not surrender to such unjust decisions."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement was also critical of the U.S. decision.

"Trump had taken his decision to attack the most two important issues of the Palestinian people, Jerusalem and the refugees,” Fatah spokesman Ossama al-Qawasmi said in a statement.

He said Trump was seeking to “liquidate the Palestinian cause by resolving the final-status issues unilaterally at the expense of international law and legitimacy as well as the rights of the Palestinian people".