Washington: United States (US) president Donald Trump has ordered the state department to withdraw $200 million-worth aid which was previously planned for West Bank and Gaza.

"At the direction of the President, we will redirect more than $200 million in FY 2017 Economic Support Funds originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza. Those funds will now address high-priority projects elsewhere," a senior state department official told CNN.

The decision to withdraw the aid comes after Trump ordered a review of "US assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with US national interests and provide value to the US taxpayer."

Condemning the decision, Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi said the US administration was "demonstrating the use of cheap blackmail as a political tool," and added that the Palestinian leadership would not be intimidated by the same.

"There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation. The US administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation and its theft of land and resources; now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation," Ashrawi said. </s> WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has informed the Palestinian government that its primary office in Washington D.C. will be closed, deepening a rift with the Palestinians and drawing cries of a “dangerous escalation” from their leadership. The move, which U.S. officials were yet to confirm on Monday morning, comes after the White House said over the weekend that it was cutting $25 million in funding for health services in heavily-Palestinian East Jerusalem.

Senior Palestinian diplomat Dr. Saeb Erekat confirmed in a statement released Monday that the U.S. government had informed the Palestinian Authority that the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization, effectively the Palestinian parliament, would be shuttered.

“We have been notified by a US official of their decision to close the Palestinian Mission to the US. This is yet another affirmation of the Trump Administration’s policy to collectively punish the Palestinian people, including by cutting financial support for humanitarian services including health and education,” Erekat said in the statement.

Closing the PLO office in D.C. will leave the Palestinians without a formal presence in the U.S. capital. Erekat said the “dangerous escalation shows that the US is willing to disband the international system in order to protect Israeli crimes and attacks against the land and people of Palestine as well as against peace and security in the rest of our region.”

The Trump administration said Saturday that it was cutting $25 million meant for East Jerusalem hospitals and putting the money toward “high-priority projects elsewhere.”

The move follows the State Department’s late August announcement that the administration is slashing more than $200 million in bilateral aid to the Palestinians following a review that President Donald Trump ordered to ensure the spending was aligned with U.S. national interests.

The Palestinians had held out hope that the hospital money would be spared because it was not included in the previously announced cut. On Saturday, the Palestinian Authority denounced the administration’s move as “an act of political blackmail.”

The State Department said the review was intended to make sure the American aid was “being spent in accordance with U.S. national interests and were providing value to the U.S. taxpayer.” The administration “will be redirecting approximately $25 million originally planned for the East Jerusalem Hospital Network. Those funds will go to high-priority projects elsewhere,” the department added. It did not identify the projects.

In response, Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi accused the administration of threatening to cause “serious instability and grave harm” to thousands of patients and their families across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and jeopardize the livelihood of thousands of workers in the Palestinian health care sector.

“Such an act of political blackmail goes against the norms of human decency and morality,” Ashrawi said in a statement. “Politics should not trump humanity or harm a vulnerable people in need of support and protection.”

The administration announced the original cut in U.S. aid to Palestinians as Mr. Trump and his Middle East advisers prepared to release the U.S. peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians. But Mr. Trump angered the Palestinians earlier this year by moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which led the Palestinians to break off contact with the U.S. </s> The United States has cut more than $200 million (approximately Rs 1,400 crore) in aid to Palestinian Authority, just months after it reduced its contribution to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, Al Jazeera reported on Saturday.

An unidentified senior official of the US State Department said the decision to cut the aid was taken after a review of US assistance to the Palestinian Authority and “at the direction of the president”.

The funds, which were originally planned for programmes in West Bank and Gaza, would be redirected to “high-priority projects elsewhere”, the official said. “We have undertaken a review of US assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with US national interests and provide value to the US taxpayer,” the official said in a statement, according to Reuters.

The official said the decision also considered “the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance in Gaza, where Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza’s citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation”.

“We will work with Congress to redirect these funds to other policy priorities,” another State department official said.

The Palestine Liberation Organization termed the US move as the use of “cheap blackmail” as a political tool. “The rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale,” Al Jazeera quoted a statement by PLO executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi. “The Palestinian people and leadership will not be intimidated and will not succumb to coercion.”

“The US administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation and its theft of land and resources; now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation,” Ashrawi said.

The relationship between the US and the Palestinian leadership has deteriorated since Palestinians boycotted US peace efforts following the relocation of the US Embassy in Israel’s Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Over 50 people were killed in clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian protestors along the Gaza border after the relocation. </s> The United States is cutting more than $200 million in aid to the Palestinians, the State Department said on Friday, amid a deteriorating relationship with the Palestinian leadership.

A senior State Department official said without elaborating that the funds, originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza, would address "high-priority projects elsewhere."

"We have undertaken a review of U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with U.S. national interests and provide value to the U.S. taxpayer," the official said in a statement.

"As a result of that review, at the direction of the president, we will redirect more than $200 million in FY2017 Economic Support Funds originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza."

Asked where the money would be redirected and whether it would go to other Palestinian projects, another State Department official said: "We will work with Congress to redirect these funds to other policy priorities."

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

The announcement came at a time when the Palestinian leadership has angered the White House by boycotting its peace efforts since President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the embassy there, reversing decades of U.S. policy.

The status of Jerusalem - home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions - is one of the biggest obstacles to any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Palestinians claim East Jerusalem for the capital of an independent state they seek. Israel says Jerusalem is its eternal and indivisible capital.

Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is leading an effort to craft a peace plan meant to launch negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians to end a decades-long conflict. A decision on when the initiative would be rolled out has not yet been made.

The State Department cited the Islamist militant group Hamas' control of Gaza as part of its justification for reallocating the funds. The United States and Israel designate Hamas as a terrorist group.

The decision is almost certain to exacerbate the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. More than 2 million Palestinians are packed into the Gaza Strip, which suffers deep economic hardship.

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi accused the Trump administration of using "cheap blackmail as a political tool."

"The Palestinian people and leadership will not be intimidated and will not succumb to coercion," she said.

Ambassador Husam Zomlot, head of the PLO General Delegation to the United States, said in a statement: "Weaponizing humanitarian and developmental aid as political blackmail does not work."

The United States had in January announced it would withhold $65 million of $125 million that it had planned to send to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions from U.N. states, with the United states as the largest contributor.

UNRWA and the Palestinians have warned that cuts could exacerbate hardship in Gaza, an enclave that has been under Israeli and Egypt blockades designed to isolate its Islamist Hamas rulers.

U.S. National Security adviser John Bolton told Reuters this week that UNRWA was "a failed mechanism" that violated standard international law on the status of refugees.

UNRWA was founded in 1949 after the first Arab-Israel war, which led to 700,000 Palestinians being forced to leave their homes or flee. It helps around 5 million Palestinian refugees, a figure that includes descendants of those displaced by the fighting

Jordan, which hosts the largest number of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East outside Palestinian territories, warned this month that a severe financial shortfall facing UNRWA could have a "catastrophic" impact on the lives of millions of refugees in the region.

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, criticized the Trump administration's decision.

"Inhabitants of Gaza are already suffering severe hardships under the tyranny of Hamas and border restrictions imposed by Israel. It is the Palestinian people, virtual prisoners in an increasingly volatile conflict, who will most directly suffer the consequences of this callous and ill-advised attempt to respond to Israel's security concerns." </s> The Trump administration has decided to cut more than $200 million in bilateral aid to the Palestinians, following a review of the funding for projects in the West Bank and Gaza, the State Department said Friday.

The department notified Congress of the decision in a brief, three-paragraph notice sent first to lawmakers and then to reporters. It said the administration will redirect the money to "high priority projects elsewhere."

The move comes as President Donald Trump and his Middle East pointmen, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, staff up their office to prepare for the rollout of a much-vaunted but as yet unclear peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.

"At the direction of President Trump, we have undertaken a review of U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with U.S. national interests and provide value to the U.S. taxpayer," the department said. "As a result of that review, at the direction of the president, we will redirect more than $200 million ... originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza."

"This decision takes into account the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance in Gaza, where Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza's citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation," the notice said, without providing additional details.

One main issue the U.S. has had with support for the Palestinian Authority had been its stipends paid to the families of Palestinians killed, injured or jailed for attacks on Israel. Israel and the Trump administration, have repeatedly demanded that those payments from a so-called "martyrs' fund" be halted because they encourage terrorism. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to do so.

The Palestine Liberation Organization quickly denounced the decision, calling it "the use of cheap blackmail as a political tool. The Palestinian people and leadership will not be intimidated and will not succumb to coercion."

"The rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale," PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement. "There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation. The U.S. administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation and its theft of land and resources; now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation."

The notice did not give an exact amount of the funds to be cut, but said they had been approved in 2017 as part of a $230.1 million package in economic support funds for the Palestinians.

One official said the specific amount had not yet been determined because $25 million in planned 2017 funding for the East Jerusalem Hospital Network, which provides health care to Palestinians, remains on hold and under review. All or part of that could still be released or reprogrammed, the official said.

The U.S. had planned to give the Palestinians $251 million for good governance, health, education and funding for civil society in the current 2018 budget year that ends on Sept.30. But with just over a month to go before that money must be used, reprogrammed to other areas or returned to Treasury, less than half has actually been spent.

Earlier this month, the department had released about $60 million of the 2018 money for security projects that encourage cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Israel and Jordan, in particular, had lobbied for the security assistance to be continued.

The loss of the assistance is almost certain to further provoke the Palestinians against the Trump peace plan. The Palestinian leadership has been openly hostile to any proposal from the administration, citing what it says is a pro-Israel bias, notably after Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December and moved the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv in May. The Palestinian Authority and Abbas broke off contact with the U.S. after the Jerusalem announcement.

The announcement does not include some $65 million in frozen U.S. funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which provides services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and Lebanon. However, the Trump administration is extremely skeptical of UNRWA and that money is also likely to be reprogrammed, according to officials.

Friday's decision follows a similar decision last week in which the State Department announced that it was redirecting $230 million dollars in aid that had been planned for stabilization programs in liberated areas of Syria. In that case, however, the department said the loss of U.S. funding would be more than offset by other nations, including Saudi Arabia, which announced a $150 million contribution for Syria stabilization just hours before the American announcement. </s> According to CNN, President Trump ordered the State Department to revoke over $200 million in economic aid to Palestine on Friday following a department-wide review examining whether or not the funding was in the American taxpayers’ best interests.

A senior official from the State Department claimed that the economic aid, that was later withdrawn, was initially intended to help fund programs in the the West Bank and Gaza.

“At the direction of the President, we will redirect more than $200 million in FY2017 Economic Support Funds originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza,” the official said. “Those funds will now address high-priority projects elsewhere.” In addition to sending funds to help provide and maintain local law enforcement in Palestine, many cultural and educational programs are created and kept afloat through the Middle East Partnership Initiative.

This announcement comes after the president instructed the State Department to conduct a review to ensure that U.S. assistance to Palestine corresponds with America’s own national interests.

“This decision takes into account the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance in Gaza, where Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza’s citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation,” according to a notice relayed from the State Department.

While the decision is widely supported by the Trump administration, congressional Democrats have already voiced their opposition to the move, claiming that it would only cause further damage to the growing conflict between Israel and Palestine. The vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy, asserted that, after well over a year and a half in office, President Trump has failed “to announce anything remotely resembling a coherent policy to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

“Inhabitants of Gaza are already suffering severe hardships under the tyranny of Hamas and border restrictions imposed by Israel,” Leahy continued. “It is the Palestinian people, virtual prisoners in an increasingly volatile conflict, who will most directly suffer the consequences of this callous and ill-advised attempt to respond to Israel’s security concerns.”

An executive committee member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hanan Ashrawi, also denounced President Trump’s order to withdraw funds from the Palestinian territories of both the West Bank and Gaza.

“The U.S. administration is demonstrating the use of cheap blackmail as a political tool. The Palestinian people and leadership will not be intimidated and will not succumb to coercion,” Ashwari said, in a statement released to CNN.

“There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation,” Ashrawi continued, adding that the United States “has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation…now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation.” </s> (WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration on Tuesday cut tens of millions of dollars in money for Palestinian refugees, demanding that the U.N. agency responsible for the programs undertake a “fundamental re-examination,” the State Department said.

In a letter, the State Department notified the U.N. Relief and Works Agency that the U.S. is withholding $65 million of a planned $125 million funding installment. The letter also makes clear that additional U.S. donations will be contingent on major changes by UNRWA, which has been heavily criticized by Israel.

“We would like to see some reforms be made,” said State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, adding that changes are needed to the way the agency operates and is funded. “This is not aimed at punishing anyone.”

The State Department said it was releasing the rest of the installment — $60 million — to prevent the agency from running out of cash by the end of the month and closing down.

The U.S. is UNWRA’s largest donor, supplying nearly 30% of its budget. The agency focuses on providing health care, education and social services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

“Given the long, trusted, and historic relationship between the United States and UNRWA, this reduced contribution threatens one of the most successful and innovative human development endeavors in the Middle-East,” UNRWA chief Pierre Krähenbühl said in a statement.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians either fled or were forced from their homes during the war that led to Israel’s establishment in 1948. Today, there are an estimated 5 million refugees and their descendants, mostly scattered across the region.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization reacted angrily to the move, saying it is targeting “the most vulnerable segment of the Palestinian people and depriving the refugees of the right to education, health, shelter and a dignified life.”

“It is also creating conditions that will generate further instability throughout the region and will demonstrate that it has no compunction in targeting the innocent,” the PLO leadership said in a statement.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was not aware of the decision, but warned that UNRWA provides “vital services.”

“I am very concerned and I strongly hope that in the end it will be possible for the United States to maintain the funding of UNRWA in which the U.S. has a very important share,” he told reporters at the U.N.

Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, praised the move, arguing that UNRWA misuses humanitarian aid to support propaganda against the Jewish state and perpetuate the Palestinians’ plight.

“It is time for this absurdity to end and for humanitarian funds to be directed towards their intended purpose: the welfare of refugees,” Danon said in a statement.

The U.S. donated $355 million to UNWRA in 2016 and was set to make a similar contribution in this year, with the first installment to have been sent this month. But after a highly critical Jan. 2 tweet from Trump on aid to the Palestinians, the State Department opted to wait for a formal policy decision before sending its first installment.

Trump’s tweet expressed frustration over the lack of progress in his attempts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and he pointed the finger at the Palestinians. “We pay the Palestinians HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect,” he said. “But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”

Israelis accuse the U.N. agency of contributing to Palestinian militancy and allowing its facilities to be used by militants. They also complain that some of UNRWA’s staff are biased against Israel.

Nauert said the United States believes there needs to be more “burden-sharing,” a regular Trump complaint about multilateral organizations dependent on significant contributions of U.S. cash.

“We don’t believe that taking care of other nations and other people have to be solely the United States’ responsibility,” she said.

The U.S. plan to withhold some, but not all, of the money was backed by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis, who offered it as a compromise to demands for more drastic measures by U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, officials said.

Haley wanted a complete cutoff in U.S. money until the Palestinians resumed peace talks with Israel that have been frozen for years. But Tillerson, Mattis and others argued that ending all assistance would exacerbate instability in the Mideast, notably in Jordan, a host to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees and a crucial U.S. strategic partner.

Eliminating or sharply reducing the U.S. contribution could hamstring the agency and severely curtail its work, putting great pressure on Jordan and Lebanon as well as the Palestinian Authority. Gaza would be particularly hard hit. Some officials, including Israelis, warn that it might push people closer to the militant Hamas movement, which controls Gaza. </s> The United States, a major ally of Israel, has cut more than $200m in economic aid to Palestinians, in a move that comes months after also drastically cutting its contribution to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

A senior US official said on Friday that President Donald Trump had ordered the State Department to “redirect” the funding for programmes in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip to unspecified “high-priority projects elsewhere”.

The official added that the decision took into account “the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance in Gaza, where Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza’s citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation”.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) quickly denounced the US move, calling it “the use of cheap blackmail as a political tool. The Palestinian people and leadership will not be intimidated and will not succumb to coercion.”

“The rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale,” PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement.

“There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation. The US administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation and its theft of land and resources; now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation.”

The decision to cut Palestinian funding comes amid a severe humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, where more than 160 Palestinians protesting for their right to return to the areas from which they were forcibly expelled from in 1948 have been killed by Israeli gunfire since March 30 during weeks-long demonstrations near the fence with Israel.

Officials in the Gaza Strip, which has been administered by Hamas since 2007, have previously blasted the US for its support to Israel, saying that Washington has long lost its regional credibility.

The US had planned to give the Palestinians $251m for good governance, health, education and funding for civil society in the current 2018 budget year that ends on September 30.

Washington gives Israel annual military aid of $3.1bn. Next year, that figure will increase to $3.8bn under a 10-year deal agreed by Barack Obama shortly before he stepped down as US president. </s> The US State department has said the Trump administration has decided to cut more than $200 million in bilateral aid to the Palestinians, following a review of the funding for projects in the West Bank and Gaza.

In a short notice sent to lawmakers on Friday, it said the administration will redirect the money to "high-priority projects elsewhere."

"At the direction of President Trump, we have undertaken a review of US assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with US national interests and provide value to the US taxpayer," the department said.

The notice did not provide an exact amount of the funds to be cut.

The cuts come just as President Donald Trump and his Middle East point men, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, prepare to present a long-awaited but as yet unclear peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.

The US had initially planned to give the Palestinians $251 million for good governance, health, education and funding for civil society in the current 2018 budget year that ends on September 30.

Read more: Gaza feels bite of US cuts to Palestinian aid

The Palestine Liberation Organization was quick to denounce the decision. "The rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale," PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement.

"There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation. The US administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation and its theft of land and resources; now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation."

Loss of the funds is almost certain to further provoke the Palestinians and set them against the Trump peace plan. The Palestinian leadership has been openly hostile to any proposal from the administration, citing what it says is a pro-Israel bias. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December, and the US moved its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in May.

The Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, broke off contact with the US after the Jerusalem announcement.

Friday's move to cut aid does not take into account some $65 million in frozen US funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and Lebanon. But officials have said the Trump administration is extremely skeptical of UNRWA, and said the money is also likely to be redirected.

The funding decision comes after a similar decision last week in which the State Department announced it was going to redirect $230 million in aid that had been planned for stabilization programs in liberated areas of Syria.

In that case, however, the department said the loss of US funding would be more than offset by other nations, including Saudi Arabia, which announced a $150 million contribution for Syria stabilization just hours before the American announcement.

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The United States Department of State redirects more than $200 million in aid for the Palestinian National Authority to "high priority projects elsewhere". The Palestine Liberation Organization denounces the "use of cheap blackmail as a political tool".