The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has been struggling to balance its books since the United States announced in January it was cutting its annual funding by $300 million (260 million euros).

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a letter to European Union colleagues that the agency was a "key factor for stability" in the Middle East whose breakdown could entail an "uncontrollable chain reaction".

Maas did not say how much money Germany would give in addition to 81 million euros it has already provided so far this year, but appealed to the EU to jointly support the agency to make up the deficit.

The foreign ministry confirmed the content of the letter.

UNRWA director Pierre Krahenbuhl said Thursday that the agency needs $200 million to continue its work until the end of this year.

The agency supports some five million registered Palestinian refugees and provides schooling for 526,000 children in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

But UNRWA has warned it currently only has the funds to keep its 711 schools open for the next month.

Jordan's foreign minister said Thursday that his country would host a fundraiser at the United Nations headquarters in New York on September 27 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to keep the agency afloat. </s> BERLIN (Reuters) - The German government has pledged to significantly increase its funding for the U.N. agency that supports Palestinian refugees after the United States cut its aid.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the funding crisis for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) was fueling uncertainty.

"The loss of this organization could unleash an uncontrollable chain reaction," he said.

Germany had already provided 81 million euros ($94 million) in aid for UNWRA this year, he said, and was preparing to increase its contribution. He gave no figure.

"We are currently preparing to provide an additional amount of significant funds," Maas said in a letter to European Union foreign ministers that was seen by Reuters.

Maas said it was clear that the added German funds would not cover a $217 million deficit left by the U.S. withdrawal, and urged the European Union and other states to work toward "a sustainable finance basis for the organization".

It is part of a broader push by Maas to take a more assertive stance in disagreements with the United States on a range of issues including trade, military spending and climate change.

Jordan said on Thursday it would lead a campaign to raise funds to help the U.N. agency survive, including an appeal to the Arab League.

UNRWA has faced a cash crisis since the United States, long its biggest donor, earlier this year slashed funding, saying the agency needed to make unspecified reforms and calling on the Palestinians to renew peace talks with Israel.

The agency was founded in 1949 after the first Arab-Israeli war, in the wake of the exodus of around 700,000 refugees who fled or were driven out of Israel on its founding as a state.

UNRWA now looks after more than 5 million people in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. </s> The German government has pledged to significantly increase its funding for the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees after the United States cut its aid.

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German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the funding crisis for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) was fueling uncertainty.

"The loss of this organization could unleash an uncontrollable chain reaction," he said.

Germany had already provided 81 million euros ($94 million) in aid for UNWRA this year, he said, and was preparing to increase its contribution. He gave no figure.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (Photo: EPA)

"We are currently preparing to provide an additional amount of significant funds," Maas said in a letter to European Union foreign ministers that was seen by Reuters.

Maas said it was clear that the added German funds would not cover a $217 million deficit left by the US withdrawal, and urged the European Union and other states to work towards "a sustainable finance basis for the organization".

It is part of a broader push by Maas to take a more assertive stance in disagreements with the United States on a range of issues including trade, military spending and climate change.

Jordan said on Thursday it would lead a campaign to raise funds to help the UN agency survive, including an appeal to the Arab League.

President Donald Trump (Photo: AP)

UNRWA has faced a cash crisis since the United States, long its biggest donor, earlier this year slashed funding, saying the agency needed to make unspecified reforms and calling on the Palestinians to renew peace talks with Israel.

In January, the United States said it would give UNRWA $60 million in aid but would withhold a further $65 million "for future consideration."

Last week, the State Department announced that it had 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.

Then, in what threatened to be a possible coup de grace against UNRWA, the Washington Post reported Friday that President Donald Trump is gearing up to announce in the coming weeks that his administration will be ending all US funding to to the organization.

The agency was founded in 1949 after the first Arab-Israel war—the War of Independence—in the wake of the exodus of around 700,000 refugees who fled or were driven out of Israel on its founding as a state.

As a result, UNRWA now looks after more than 5 million descendants of those original refugees, in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

UNRWA now looks after more than 5 million people in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

UNRWA facility in Gaza (Photo: Reuters)

The nascent state of Israel absorbed Jewish refugees who were expelled or who fled from neighboring Arab countries, while other Arab states refused to grant the Palestinians citizenship.

Israel argues that UNRWA perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem by grossly inflating the number of bonafide refugees.

Since the agency includes descendants of Palestinian refugees from the War of Independence, it grants refugee status to Palestinians according to a criteria that is not adhered to in any other refugee question.

UNRWA has become the subject of significant scrutiny since President Trump entered the White House.

After appointing his son-in-law Jared Kushner as a Mideast advisor charged with formulating a long-awaited peace initiative to put an end to the decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the UN refugee organization appeared to occupy a significant spot on his radar.

In an internal email recently published by Foreign Policy magazine, Kushner called for a "sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA."

"This (agency) perpetuates a status quo, is corrupt, inefficient and doesn't help peace," he reportedly wrote in an email dated January 11.

Last week, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley appeared to question the world body's count of Palestinian refugees.

By casting doubt on what some describe as an inflated number of Palestinian refugees, the US is removing a central stumbling block that has frustrated peace negotiations in the past, which calls for the so-called “right of return” of the millions of Palestinians defined as refugees by the UN.

Palestinians have clung to the notion that the refugees and their descendants should be allowed to settle in Israel as part of any peace deal, a precondition Israel says is designed to destroy its Jewish majority and therefore eradicate the Jewish state.

For Nikki Haley, however, the decision to withhold funds to the organization also stems from the Palestinians’ “bashing” of the US, despite the fact that it has for years been the chief financial donor to UNRWA.

“First of all, you’re looking at the fact that, yes, there’s an endless number of refugees that continue to get assistance, but more importantly, the Palestinians continue to bash America,” she said during a conference at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Ambassador Nikki Haley (Photo: AFP)

Moreover, Haley has also expounded the administration’s view that other Arab countries should be be taking greater responsibility to assist the organization rather than leaving it to the US to pay the lion’s share of financial aid, which amounts to one third of the total budget.

“Where is Saudi Arabia? Where is the United Arab Emirates? Where is Kuwait? Do they not care enough about Palestinians to go and give money to make sure these kids are taken care of?” Haley asked.

Some in Israel have even tougher criticism for the organization, accusing UNRWA of teaching hatred of Israel in its classrooms and tolerating or assisting Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

In July last year, the agency said it was investigating after finding 20 rockets hidden in one of its vacant schools in the Gaza Strip. </s> UNRWA has warned it currently only has the funds to keep its 711 schools open for the next month (AFP Photo/Jaafar ASHTIYEH)

Vienna (AFP) - Germany will provide additional funding for the UN's Palestinian refugee agency and has appealed to other EU members to do the same following a cut in US aid, its foreign ministry said Friday.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has been struggling to balance its books since the United States announced in January it was cutting its annual funding by $300 million (260 million euros).

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a letter to European Union colleagues that the agency was a "key factor for stability" in the Middle East whose breakdown could entail an "uncontrollable chain reaction".

Maas did not say how much money Germany would give in addition to 81 million euros it has already provided so far this year, but appealed to the EU to jointly support the agency to make up the deficit.

The foreign ministry confirmed the content of the letter.

UNRWA director Pierre Krahenbuhl said Thursday that the agency needs $200 million to continue its work until the end of this year.

The agency supports some five million registered Palestinian refugees and provides schooling for 526,000 children in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

But UNRWA has warned it currently only has the funds to keep its 711 schools open for the next month.

Jordan's foreign minister said Thursday that his country would host a fundraiser at the United Nations headquarters in New York on September 27 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to keep the agency afloat. </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> Palestinian refugees reacted with dismay on Saturday to a United States decision to halt funding to a UN agency, warning that it would lead to more poverty, anger and instability in the Middle East.

The US announcement on Friday that it will no longer support the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has deepened a cash crisis at the agency, and heightened tensions with the Palestinian leadership.

The 68-year-old UNRWA provides services to about 5 million Palestinian refugees across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank and Gaza. Most are descendants of the roughly 700,000 Palestinians who were driven out of their homes or fled the fighting in the 1948 war that led to Israel’s creation.

In Gaza, Nashat Abu El-Oun, a refugee and father of eight, said: “The situation is bad and it will become worse … People can hardly afford living these days and if they became unable to earn their living they will begin thinking of unlawful things.”

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said on Friday that UNRWA’s business model and fiscal practices were an “irredeemably flawed operation” and that the agency’s “endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries is simply unsustainable.”

UNRWA rejected the criticisms, with spokesman Chris Gunness describing it as “a force for regional stability.”

Speaking in Jordan, where more than 2 million registered Palestinian refugees live, including 370,000 in 10 refugee camps, Gunness said: “It is a deeply regrettable decision … some of the most disadvantaged, marginalised and vulnerable people on this planet are likely to suffer.”

US cancels more than US$200 million in aid to Palestinians

Gunness said UNRWA provides health clinics, schooling for 526,000 refugee children across Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and food help to 1.7 million people – a million of them in Gaza. The agency, which has a funding gap of US$217 million, will now ask donors for more and seek new sources of income, he said.

The United States, by far UNRWA’s biggest donor, slashed funding earlier this year, paying out only US$60 million of a first instalment in January, and withholding US$65 million. It had promised US$365 million for the whole year.

Washington said the agency needed to make unspecified reforms and called 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 to Israeli settlement building on occupied land that Palestinians seek for a state.

Israeli Intelligence Minister Israel Katz said the U.S.’s decision represented a “realistic view of the situation and supports Israel’s position.”

UNRWA is “the body that enshrines the Palestinian refugee problem,” he wrote on Twitter.

“We already have great-great-grandchildren of refugees who are not refugees,” he said in January. “I suggest a gradual conversion of all funds going to UNRWA to other agencies.”

On Friday, before the US decision was confirmed, the head of the international UN refugee agency UNHCR, Filippo Grandi, was asked if his agency could assume UNRWA’s role.

Palestinians hurting their own cause in demanding right to return

“The Palestinian refugees in the region are the responsibility of UNRWA,” he said, making no further comment.

The UNRWA move is the latest in a number of actions by the Trump administration that have alienated the Palestinians, including the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

That move was a reversal of long-time US policy and led Palestinian leadership to boycott the Washington peace efforts led by Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat accused Washington of implementing the agenda of “Israeli extremists who have done nothing but to destroy the prospect of peace.”

Speaking in Ramallah, he said: “The United States may have the right to say that we don’t want to give taxpayers’ money, but who gave the US the right to approve the stealing of my land, my future, my aspirations, my capital, my Aqsa Mosque, my Holy Sepulchre Church?”

In Jalazone refugee camp near Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Ayoub Abeidi, whose family once lived in what is now the city of Lod in Israel, said the decision was political.

“Trump wants to finish off UNRWA so he can terminate the right of refugees (to return),” said Abeidi, 53. “Our right to return exists and neither Trump nor anybody else can cancel it.”

Successive Israeli government have ruled out any right of return, fearing the country would lose its Jewish majority. </s> U.S. Ends Funding Of UN Agency That Supports Palestinian Refugees

The Trump administration announced on Friday it would cease all funding of an agency that provides services to more than 5 million Palestinian refugees. It is a reversal of years of U.S. policy on a core issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"The United States will no longer commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation," State Department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert said in a statement.

In previous years the U.S. has provided more than $350 million — about a third of the annual budget of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The organization uses the funds to run schools and clinics for Palestinian refugees in occupied territories — the West Bank and Gaza — as well as those in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

The White House's withdrawal of support has been expected for some time; It had suspended most of the aid in January after making a $60 million contribution. At the time officials said the department was reassessing future aid, and called on other countries to take on greater financial responsibility.

"We made it clear that the United States was no longer willing to shoulder the very disproportionate share of the burden of UNRWA's costs that we had assumed for many years," Nauert said in the statement.

In recent months, neighboring Arab and European countries have pledged to protect the aid organization. Just hours before the State Department announcement on Friday, Germany agreed to significantly boost funding, the AP reported.

The Times of Israel reported that "Jordan said Thursday it would host a fundraiser at the United Nations headquarters in New York next month to keep UNRWA afloat."

But international efforts appear to have done little to assuage the Trump administration's concerns over the UN agency's fundamental business model, which it called "simply unsustainable" and described as being in "crisis mode for many years.

Palestinians have accused the White House of using the agency — and the welfare of refugees — as a bargaining chip to pressure Palestinian leadership into a U.S.-brokered peace deal with Israel. Palestinian leaders have cut contact with the U.S. since the Trump administration backed Israel's claim of Jerusalem as its capital. Palestinians want part of the city for a capital for their future state.

Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. negotiator in Mideast peace talks, warned on Twitter that the cuts could lead to instability, and end up costing Israel.

"Defunding UNWRA — whatever its flaws — is a mistake," Miller wrote. "It will harm Israeli security; create openings for Hamas on the West Bank; and create a situation in which Israel will be stuck — one way or the other — with the check."

The State Department did not address concerns that the U.S. may try to pressure the United Nations into reducing the number of Palestinians given refugee status. But Nauert said the U.S. is concerned about the impact of its funding cuts on quote "innocent Palestinians" — and suggested it may give direct aid instead.

"The United States will intensify dialogue with the United Nations, host governments, and international stakeholders about new models and new approaches," she said in the statement. </s> AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan said on Thursday it would lead a campaign to raise funds for the U.N. agency that supports Palestinian refugees, to help it survive after the United States cut its funding.

Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said a meeting next month in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly would mobilize support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to continue core education and health services.

“Any shortage in funding will drive hundreds of thousands towards deprivation and despair,” Safadi, whose country has 2.2 million U.N. registered Palestinian refugees, said in Amman after meeting Pierre Krahenbuhl, the UNRWA head. Jordan will call for an Arab League meeting to lobby for donors to cover the $200 million shortfall needed to shore up UNRWA, Safadi said.

UNRWA has faced a cash crisis since the United States, long its biggest donor, earlier this year slashed funding, saying the agency needed to make unspecified reforms and calling on the Palestinians to renew peace talks with Israel.

The agency was founded in 1949 after the first Arab-Israel war, in the wake of the exodus of around 700,000 refugees who fled or were driven out of Israel on its founding as a state.

UNRWA now looks after more than 5 million descendants of those original refugees, in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“One cannot wish 5.3 million Palestine refugees away. These are people who have rights and for many years now, for decades have faced a plight and injustice that is simply immense,” UNRWA’s Krahenbuhl said at a news conference with Safadi.

“As long as a just a lasting solution has not found of the issue of Israel-Palestine conflict we will continue to implement the mandate that the General Assembly has given us.”

The Palestinians assert the right under international law to return to homes abandoned in Israel or be compensated. Safadi said funding cuts for UNRWA undermine that right.

“The continuation of UNRWA means continued commitment by the international community to working towards a just solution of the refugees that guarantees the right of return and compensation,” Safadi said.

Safadi last week raised the plight of UNRWA with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington where officials say he warned of “dangerous consequences” to regional stability if the financial crisis were not resolved. </s> Jan. 16 (UPI) -- The U.S. State Department confirmed Tuesday it will withhold more than half of its funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees.

The United States will withhold $65 million of its previously planned $125 million tranche of funding to the UNRWA, while continuing to send $60 million to avoid a "negative impact."

"It's money that's being frozen at this time," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said of the $65 million. "It's not being canceled. It's just being held for future considerations."

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley previously said the United States would freeze UNRWA funding unless Palestinians returned to negotiations with Israel after President Donald Trump moved to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Nauert said the decision to withhold funding to UNRWA was due to concerns about how it is managed and additional funding will be dependent on changes being made at the agency.

"I can tell you that it has long been a concern of this administration -- a year into the administration --about UNRWA and how it handles itself and manages its money," she said.

The United States contributes $364 million annually in two installments to the agency, which provides healthcare and social services to Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and neighboring countries.

Prior to the announcement that the funds had been withheld, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned cutting UNRWA funding could impact create a "serious problem" for Palestinian refugees.

"It is an important factor of stability, so if UNRWA will not be in a position to provide the vital services and the emergency forms of support that UNRWA has been providing, these will create a very, very serious problem, and we will do everything we can to avoid the situation to occur," Guterres said.

Following the cuts, the United States is asking other countries to contribute more to the agency, according to Nauert.

"We don't believe that taking care of other nations and other people has to solely be the United States' responsibility," she said.
Ahead of an expected U.S. announcement that it will cut all aid to the UNRWA, which supports more than 5 million registered Palestinian refugees, Germany calls on European Union states to help bridge the expected US$217 million deficit. Yesterday, Jordan made a similar appeal to the Arab League.