American aid suspension hits Gaza’s poor hard
GAZA CITY: Hadil al Rafati gently adjusts her anaemia-stricken toddler’s frail legs onto her lap in the lobby of an NGO’S clinic in Gaza City.
The programme providing treatment to her son is among those in the enclave facing cuts or closure due to a freeze on US aid to the Palestinians, organisers say.
“He weighs 7.2 kg, but at a year and a month, he should be at least 10,” the 21-year-old mother said of her son, Essam.
Since January, US financing for humanitarian programmes serving the Palestinians has been suspended, with Washington saying it is being reviewed. President Donald Trump has threatened to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to force the Palestinians back to the negotiating table with Israel.
On a recent day, around 15 mothers waited in the lobby of the clinic run by Palestinian organisation Ard al Insan to see a paediatrician or to receive food supplements for their children.
Certain services have been maintained with available funding, but the programme is due to expire at the end of August if the money is not released. “They help us, give us medicine,” said Rafati, who is unemployed and whose husband picks up odd jobs to make ends meet. “If they close, where will we go?”
The Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas, has been under an Israeli blockade for more than 10 years.
The two sides have fought three wars since 2008.
Some 80 per cent of the enclave’s two million residents rely on aid, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Trump’s comments on aid in January came after Palestinian leaders suspended relations with the White House over its deeply controversial recognition of the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Since then, the passage of a US law in March withholding certain aid to the Palestinians over payments made to prisoners jailed for security offences, or to the families of those killed while carrying out attacks against Israelis, has further complicated the situation.
Some $215 million that the United States was to invest in humanitarian aid and development in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip has been held up, according to an analysis for the US Congress. US financing for UNRWA has also been blocked.
“At President Trump’s direction, assistance to the Palestinians remains under review,” a US State Department official said.
Some programmes are already facing cuts, such as the Palestine Avenir for Childhood Foundation, which has not renewed contracts for some 30 employees since the start of the year.
Suffering from cerebral palsy, ninemonth-old Maher had been receiving four physiotherapy sessions per week from the organisation. He now only comes twice per week due to a lack of available therapists.
“The change has been huge in the last three months,” said his mother Nada Abu Assi, 27, as she watches her son move with the help of a support device.