WASHINGTON/RAMALLAH: The United States on Friday halted all funding to a UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees in a decision further heightening tensions between the Palestinian leadership and the Trump administration.
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas denounced the decision as “a flagrant assault against the Palestinian people and a defiance of UN resolutions.”
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the business model and fiscal practices of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) made it an “irredeemably flawed operation.”
“The administration has carefully reviewed the issue and determined that the United States will not make additional contributions to UNRWA,” she said in a statement.
Nauert said the agency’s “endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries is simply unsustainable and has been in crisis mode for many years.”
The latest announcement comes a week after the administration said it would redirect $200 million in Palestinian economic support funds for programs in the West Bank and Gaza.
UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness voiced the agency’s “deep regret and disappointment” at the decision, which he said was surprising given that a December US funding agreement had acknowledged UNRWA’s successful management.
“We reject in the strongest possible terms the criticism that UNRWA’s schools, health centers, and emergency assistance programs are ‘irredeemably flawed,’” Gunness added in a series of Twitter posts.
The 68-year-old agency says it provides services to about 5 million Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank and Gaza. Most are descendants of people who were driven out of their homes or fled the fighting in the 1948 war that led to Israel’s creation.
US President Donald Trump and his aides say they want to improve the Palestinians’ plight, as well as start negotiations on an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
But under Trump, Washington has taken a number of actions that have alienated the Palestinians, including the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. That move was a reversal of longtime US policy and led the Palestinian leadership to boycott the Washington peace efforts being led by Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law.
The United States paid out $60 million to UNRWA in January, withholding another $65 million, from a promised $365 million for the year.
“NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION“
“Such a punishment will not succeed to change the fact that the United States no longer has a role in the region and that it is not a part of the solution,” Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah told Reuters.
He said “neither the United States nor anybody else will be able to dissolve” UNRWA.
In Gaza, the Islamist group Hamas condemned the USmove as a “grave escalation against the Palestinian people.”
“The American decision aims to wipe out the right of return and is a grave USescalation against the Palestinian people,” said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.
He told Reuters the “USleadership has become an enemy of our people and of our nation and we will not surrender before such unjust decisions.”
Earlier on Friday, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Germany would increase its contributions to UNRWA because the funding crisis was fueling uncertainty. “The loss of this organization could unleash an uncontrollable chain reaction,” Maas said.
UNRWA has faced a cash crisis since the United States, long its biggest donor, slashed funding earlier this year, saying the agency needed to make unspecified reforms and calling on the Palestinians to renew peace talks with Israel.
The last Palestinian-Israeli peace talks collapsed in 2014, partly because of Israel’s opposition to an attempted unity pact between the Fatah and Hamas Palestinian factions and Israeli settlement building on occupied land that Palestinians seek for a state.
Nauert said the United States would intensify talks with the United Nations, the region’s governments and international stakeholders that could involve bilateral US assistance for Palestinian children.
“We are very mindful of and deeply concerned regarding the impact upon innocent Palestinians, especially school children, of the failure of UNRWA and key members of the regional and international donor community to reform and reset the UNRWA way of doing business,” she said.
Gunness told Reuters earlier in August that UNRWA’s support would be needed as long as the parties failed to reach an agreement to end the crisis.
“UNRWA does not perpetuate the conflict, the conflict perpetuates UNRWA,” he said. “It is the failure of the political parties to resolve the refugee situation which perpetuates the continued existence of UNRWA.”
US halts all funding to UN body helping Palestinians
US halts all funding to UN body helping Palestinians
- US State Department: Business model and fiscal practices of UNRWA were an “irredeemably flawed operation”
- US President Donald Trump and his aides say they want to improve the Palestinians’ plight, as well as start negotiations on an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement
‘Protect our people’: Armed Syrian volunteers watch over Damascus
- Local committees have taken over some of the deserted checkpoints, with the authorities’ approval
- Committees had been set up to patrol neighborhoods to prevent crime until the police could take over
After Islamist-led militants ousted former president Bashar Assad in early December, thousands of soldiers, policemen and other security officials deserted their posts, leaving the door open to petty theft, looting and other crimes.
The new Syrian authorities now face the mammoth challenge of rebuilding state institutions shaped by the Assad family’s five-decade rule, including the army and security apparatuses that have all but collapsed.
In the meantime, Damascenes have jumped into action.
In the Old City, Fadi Raslan, 42, was among dozens of people cautiously watching the streets, his finger on the trigger of his gun.
“We have women and elderly people at home. We are trying to protect our people with this volunteer-based initiative,” he said.
“Syria needs us right now, we must stand together.”
Local committees have taken over some of the deserted checkpoints, with the authorities’ approval.
Hussam Yahya, 49, and his friends have been taking turns guarding their neighborhood, Shughur, inspecting vehicles.
“We came out to protect our neighborhoods, shops and public property as volunteers, without any compensation,” he said.
He said the new authorities, led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group, have backed their initiative, providing light arms and training.
Authorities also provided them with special “local committee” cards, valid for a year.
Police chief Ahmad Lattouf said the committees had been set up to patrol neighborhoods to prevent crime until the police could take over.
“There aren’t enough police officers at the moment, but training is ongoing to increase our numbers,” he said.
The Damascus committees begin their neighborhood watches at 22:00 (19:00 GMT) every night and end them at 06:00 (03:00 GMT) the next morning.
Further north, in the cities of Aleppo and Homs, ordinary residents have also taken up weapons to guard their districts with support from authorities, residents said.
The official page of the Damascus countryside area has published photos on Telegram showing young men it said were “volunteering” to protect their town and villages “under the supervision of the Military Operations Department and in coordination with General Security.”
It also said others were volunteering as traffic police.
A handful of police officers affiliated with the Salvation Government of the Idlib region, the militant bastion controlled by HTS before Assad’s fall, have also been deployed in Damascus.
Traffic policemen have been called from Idlib to help, while HTS gunmen are everywhere in the capital, especially in front of government buildings including the presidential palace and police headquarters.
The authorities have also begun allowing Syrians to apply to the police academy to fill its depleted ranks.
Syria’s new rulers have called on conscripts and soldiers to surrender their weapons at dedicated centers.
Since rising to power, HTS and its allies have launched security sweeps in major cities including Homs and Aleppo with the stated goal of rooting out “remnants of Assad’s militias.”
In the capital’s busy Bab Touma neighborhood, four local watchmen were checking people’s IDs and inspecting cars entering the district.
Fuad Farha said he founded the local committee that he now heads after offering his help to “establish security” alongside the HTS-affiliated security forces.
“We underwent a quick training, mainly teaching us how to assemble weapons and take them apart and to use rifles,” he said.
Residents said that the committees had been effective against burglars and thieves.
“We all need to bear responsibility for our neighborhood, our streets and our country,” Farha said.
“Only this way will we be able to rebuild our country.”
Macron says West must be cautious over new Syria rulers
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday the West must not be naive about the new authorities in Syria after the ousting of Bashar Assad and promised France would not abandon Kurdish fighters.
“We must regard the regime change in Syria without naivety,” Macron said in a speech to French ambassadors after Islamist-led forces toppled Assad last month, adding France would not abandon “freedom fighters, like the Kurds” who are fighting extremist groups in Syria.
UN: Over 30 million in need of aid in war-torn Sudan
- Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than eight million internally displaced
- Both the army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: More than 30 million people, over half of them children, are in need of aid in Sudan after twenty months of war, the United Nations said on Monday.
The UN has launched a $4.2 billion call for funds, targeting 20.9 million people across Sudan from a total of 30.4 million people it said are in need in what it called “an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.”
Sudan has been torn apart and pushed to the brink of famine by the war that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than eight million internally displaced, which, in addition to 2.7 million displaced before the war, has made Sudan the world’s largest internal displacement crisis.
A further 3.3 million people have fled across Sudan’s borders to escape the war, which means over a quarter of the country’s pre-war population, estimated at around 50 million, are now uprooted.
Famine has already been declared in five areas in Sudan and is expected to take hold of five more areas by May, with 8.1 million people currently on the brink of mass starvation.
Sudan’s army-aligned government has denied there is famine, while aid agencies complain that access is blocked by bureaucratic hurdles and ongoing violence.
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war.
For much of the conflict, the UN has struggled to raise even a quarter of the funds it has targeted for its humanitarian response in the impoverished northeast African country.
Sudan has often been called the world’s “forgotten” war, overshadowed by conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine despite the scale of the horrors inflicted upon civilians.
Jordanian FM discusses rebuilding Syria in Turkiye talks
DUBAI: The Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi highlighted on Tuesday the need to help Syria regain its security, stability, and sovereignty during discussions in Turkiye.
Talks also focused on providing support to the Syrian people and addressing the challenge of rebuilding the war-torn country.
He underscored Jordan's firm stance against any aggression on Syria’s sovereignty, rejecting Israeli attacks on Syrian territory.
The minister also expressed solidarity with Turkey, supporting its rights in confronting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), emphasizing the importance of regional cooperation to ensure peace and stability.
Israel military says three projectiles fired from north Gaza
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it identified three projectiles fired from the northern Gaza Strip that crossed into Israel on Monday, the latest in a series of launches from the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
“One projectile was intercepted by the IAF (air force), one fell in Sderot and another projectile fell in an open area. No injuries were reported,” the military said in a statement.
