US halts all aid to Palestinians

Washington/ Ramallah, Sept. 1: 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 Nau- ert said the business mo- del and fiscal practices of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency ( UN- RWA) made it an “irredeemably flawed operation.” “The administration has carefully reviewed the issue and determined that the US will not make additional contributions,” 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 programes in the West Bank and Gaza.

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness voiced the agency’s “deep regret and disappointment” at the decision.

“We reject in the strongest possible terms the criticism that UNRWA’s schools, health centres, and emergency assistance programmes are ‘ irredeemably flawed,’” Gunness added in a series of Twitter posts.