The Trump administration has not yet transferred a planned $125 million payment to the United Nations (U.N.) agency charged with assisting Palestinian refugees amid frustrations over a lack of progress on a peace deal between the Palestinians and Israelis.

Axios reported Friday that the Trump administration had frozen the funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and was conducting a broader review of U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority. That money, according to Axios, was supposed to be transferred on Jan. 1.

A State Department official denied that the department had missed a deadline, telling The Hill that funding decisions were still underway.

"Contrary to reports that we have halted funding to UNRWA, the decision is under review. There are still deliberations taking place, and we have missed no deadline," the official said.

A State Department official had told Axios that the funds were not necessarily frozen, and that the administration has until Jan. 15 to decide its next steps.

ADVERTISEMENT

There is no formal deadline for transferring the funds, though donors usually do so early in the year.

Chris Gunness, a spokesman for UNRWA, said in a statement that no decision had yet been made on the funding.

“Based on extensive conversations with interlocutors in the U.S. Administration, our understanding is that no decision has been made on the question of American funding to UNRWA,” he said.

The $125 million in question amounts to about a third of Washington's annual donations to the agency.

According to Axios, Trump is considering cutting that portion of the funding altogether, and is weighing slashing as much as $180 million in U.S. funding to UNRWA.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley Nimrata (Nikki) HaleySouth Carolina GOP appears to violate own rules in canceling primary for Trump Politico's Johnson to become Free Beacon's new editor-in-chief GOP voters overwhelmingly want Pence on 2020 ticket with Trump MORE suggested this week that the U.S. could cut funding for the Palestinians unless they agreed to return to the negotiating table with Israel.

Trump took to Twitter to make similar threats, blaming the Palestinians for the stalled peace process.

The State Department told UNRWA officials this week that no hold had been placed on the money, but that the Trump administration was conducting a review of funding to the Palestinians, according to a U.N. official who spoke on background to discuss internal deliberations on the matter.

That official also said, however, that Haley told U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres this week that the funding to UNRWA was, in fact, on hold.

The UNRWA is separate from the Palestinian Authority, and does not play a role in the decision on whether to enter peace talks with Israel.

The Palestinian Authority suspended contacts with the Trump administration last month after the president announced that the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Palestinian officials and other leaders in the Arab and Muslim worlds have said that the move essentially disqualified the U.S. from brokering peace talks in the region.

Israelis consider Jerusalem their eternal capital, but Palestinians have also long aspired to establish the city's eastern sector as the capital of a future Palestinian state, making the city a sensitive subject in potential peace talks.

– This story was updated Jan. 6 at 3 p.m. with additional information </s> Days after President Donald Trump threatened to withhold future aid payments to Palestinians, Axios said the funding was frozen until the U.S. government finishes its review of aid to the Palestinian Authority.

The sum, a third of the annual U.S. donation to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, was supposed to be delivered by Jan. 1, Axios said, citing three unidentified Western diplomats.

The State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “That (Axios) story is very misleading. Just because they were expecting the money on the first, and they did not get it at that time, does not mean it was suspended or canceled. Deliberations are ongoing, and we have until mid-January to make a final decision.”

Asked if any preliminary decision had been made, the official replied: “No. And reports to that effect are false.”

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said the agency had not been “informed directly of a formal decision either way by the U.S. administration.”

The United States is the largest donor to the agency, with a pledge of nearly $370 million as of 2016, according to UNRWA’s website. </s> US freezes US$125m funds for Palestinian refugees, report says

Trump said on Tuesday he would withhold money from the Palestinians, accusing them of being ‘no longer willing to talk peace’ with Israel. ― Reuters picWASHINGTON, Jan 6 ― The United States has frozen US$125 million (RM499.6 million) in funding for a UN agency that provides aid to Palestinian refugees, Axios news site reported yesterday, days after President Donald Trump threatened to withhold future aid payments to Palestinians.

But a State Department official said no decision had been made on the funding.

The funding, a third of the annual US donation to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, was supposed to be delivered by January 1 but was frozen until the US government finishes its review of aid to the Palestinian Authority, Axios reported, citing three unidentified Western diplomats.

The State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “That (Axios) story is very misleading. Just because they were expecting the money on the first, and they did not get it at that time, does not mean it was suspended or canceled. Deliberations are ongoing, and we have until mid-January to make a final decision.”

Asked if any preliminary decision had been made, the official replied: “No. And reports to that effect are false.”

Trump said on Tuesday he would withhold money from the Palestinians, accusing them of being “no longer willing to talk peace” with Israel.

“We pay HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel ... with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?” Trump said on Twitter.

The United States is the largest donor to the agency, with a pledge of nearly US$370 million as of 2016, according to UNRWA’s website. ― Reuters </s> The United States held back $65 million that had been destined for the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians on Tuesday, two weeks after President Donald Trump threatened future payments.

State Department officials insisted the decision was not taken to pressure Palestinian leaders, but because the US wants other countries to help pay for and reform UNRWA.

But the call came after a behind-the-scenes tussle between hawks who want to cut all aid to Palestinians and officials concerned about the humanitarian and diplomatic fallout.

The State Department said $60 million of what had been a planned $125 million package would go through to keep the agency running, but the rest will be withheld for now.

"This is not aimed at punishing anyone," spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters.

"The United States government, and the Trump administration, believe that there should be more so-called burden-sharing to go around," she said.

"We would like other countries, in fact other countries that criticize the United States for what they believe to be our position vis-a-vis the Palestinians... to step forward."

The head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Pierre Krahenbuhl, expressed alarm and immediately called on other UN members to contribute. </s> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will give a U.N. agency $60 million in aid for Palestinians refugees but withhold a further $65 million for now, the State Department said on Tuesday, as the Trump administration carried out a threat it made two weeks ago to cut funding.

While saying the decision would sustain schools and health services, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert echoed President Donald Trump in calling on other nations to provide more funds because he believes the United States pays more than its share.

The decision to keep back some money is likely to compound the difficulty of reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and to further undermine Arabs' faith that the United States can act as an impartial arbitrator, particularly following Trump's Dec. 6 announcement reversing decades of U.S. policy and recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

A Palestinian official quickly criticized Washington's decision to withhold some of the money and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was unaware of any cut in aid but he was "very concerned" about the possibility.

The State Department notified the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) of the decision in a letter, Nauert said at a daily briefing. She said the Trump administration was conditioning the release of the additional funds on whether the organization makes unspecified reforms.

She insisted, however, the U.S. decision was "not aimed at punishing" anyone.

A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said UNRWA must be fundamentally reevaluated "in the way it operates and the way it is funded."

"Without the funds we are providing today, UNRWA operations were at risk of running out of funds and closing down. The funds provided by the United States will prevent that from happening for the immediate future," the official said, saying the additional "$65 million will be held for future consideration."

In a Twitter post on Jan. 2, Trump said that Washington gives the Palestinians "HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect.

"They don't even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel ... with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?" Trump added in his tweet.

While U.S. officials did not link the U.S. decision to Trump's tweet, they made a point often advanced by the president by saying the United States had been UNRWA’s single largest donor for decades and demanded other nations do more.

"The United States government and the Trump administration believes there should be more burden sharing going around," spokeswoman Nauert said.

Trump’s aides initially debated whether to cut off all UNRWA aid after the tweet, a second U.S. official said. But those opposed to the idea argued that it could further destabilize the region, the official said.

"UNRWA has proven time and again to be an agency that misuses the humanitarian aid of the international community and instead supports anti-Israel propaganda, perpetuates the plight of Palestinian refugees and encourages hate," Danny Danon, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, said.

Palestine Liberation Organization official Wasel Abu Youssef told Reuters: "This decision confirms the U.S administration is continuing in wiping out the rights of the Palestinian people. First was declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and today the refugee issue."

Historically, U.S. administrations had said the status of Jerusalem must be decided in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The city is holy to three major monotheistic faiths.

At the United Nations, Guterres told reporters that the services provided by UNRWA were "of extreme importance, not only for the well-being of these populations ... but also in my opinion and an opinion that is shared by most international observers, including some Israeli ones, 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 this will create a very, very serious problem and we will do everything we can to avoid this situation," he said. </s> The Trump administration is reportedly freezing $125 million in funding to the United Nations (U.N.) agency charged with assisting Palestinian refugees amid frustrations over a lack of progress on a peace deal between the Palestinians and Israelis.

Axios reported Friday that the Trump administration did not transfer the funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) on Jan. 1 as planned, and was conducting a broader review of U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority.

A State Department official denied that the department had missed a deadline, telling The Hill that funding decisions were still underway.

"Contrary to reports that we have halted funding to UNRWA, the decision is under review. There are still deliberations taking place, and we have missed no deadline," the official said.

A State Department official had told Axios that the funds were not necessarily frozen, and that the administration has until Jan. 15 to decide its next steps.

The $125 million in question amounts to about a third of Washington's annual donations to the agency.

According to Axios, Trump is considering cutting that portion of the funding altogether, and is weighing slashing as much as $180 million in U.S. funding to UNRWA.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley Nimrata (Nikki) HaleyHaley: 'Open question' if US athletes will attend Olympics amid North Korea tensions Haley: Trump isn't deciding who controls east Jerusalem Emergency UN Security Council meeting called after Trump's Jerusalem announcement: report MORE suggested this week that the U.S. could cut funding for the Palestinians unless they agreed to return to the negotiating table with Israel.

Trump took to Twitter to make similar threats, blaming the Palestinians for the stalled peace process.

The Palestinian Authority suspended contacts with the Trump administration last month after the president announced that the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Palestinian officials and other leaders in the Arab and Muslim worlds have said that the move essentially disqualified the U.S. from brokering peace talks in the region.

Israelis consider Jerusalem their eternal capital, but Palestinians have also long aspired to establish the city's eastern sector as the capital of a future Palestinian state, making the city a sensitive subject in potential peace talks. </s> The United States has announced its withholding $65 million in aid to Palestinian refugees but is insistent the move is not aimed at punishing Palestinians.

Washington officially announced Tuesday that it is freezing the funds “for future consideration.” The money was set to be allocated to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which works with Palestinian refugees.

"This is not aimed at punishing anyone,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a media briefing.

It was initially reported ten days ago that Washington would withhold $125 million from the UN-affiliated body, but official word only arrived Tuesday. The funds were supposed to be paid at the start of the year.

The decision to suspend the aid comes two weeks after President Donald Trump threatened to cut funding. In a tweet on January 2, Trump said the US gets no “appreciation or respect” from Palestine despite donating hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

“They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel... With the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?” Trump said.

The tweets came after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected Trump’s move to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Abbas added that the US can no longer be considered an honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

A US official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, did not link the fund freeze to the president’s tweets, instead demanding that other countries do more to help Palestine.

“It is time other countries, some of them quite wealthy, step in and do their part to advance regional security and stability,” the official said. </s> Washington has frozen a $125 million payment to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency that was scheduled for January 1, according to a report citing unnamed diplomats. UNRWA provides aid to Palestinian refugees.

Citing “three Western diplomats,” Israeli Channel Ten diplomatic correspondent Barak Ravid reported the freeze on Friday at Axios. The diplomats reportedly said that the funding is being frozen until the Trump administration finishes a review of US aid to the Palestinian Authority.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump tweeted he was considering halting payments to the PA. The sentiments were echoed by the US envoy to the UN, Nikki Haley.

“But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?” Trump wrote.

The frozen amount represents more than a third of the $300 million the US contributes to UNRWA annually. Haley threatened to withhold the funds last week, after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected Trump’s move to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Just because the funds were not transferred does not mean they were frozen, Ravid quotes a State Department official as saying. “There are still deliberations taking place, and we have until mid January to decide what we are going to do.”

Shuttering the UNRWA, which is already facing budget shortages, would leave millions of Palestinian refugees inside Israeli-controlled borders without their basic needs met. Destabilization could spark a popular uprising and potential armed conflict with Hamas, the militant group that rules the Gaza Strip.

On January 3, Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum called the threats to defund UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority “cheap political blackmail” that “reflects American barbaric behavior.”

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat Trump is “threatening to starve Palestinian children in refugee camps and deny their natural rights to health and education if we don’t endorse his terms and dictations.”

On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly supported Trump’s “critical attitude towards UNRWA,” according to statement from his office.

Privately, however, Netanyahu urged Trump not to enact the cuts, according to the Times of Israel. That assessment is shared by the Israeli security establishment and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) – the Israeli body that administers the West Bank and Gaza – according to Ravid’s report. A senior Israeli official told him that the “humanitarian situation in Gaza is complicated enough and harming UNRWA funding will only make it more complicated.”

UNRWA was set up in 1949, following the establishment of the state of Israel. The agency provides education, social services and healthcare to more than 5 million Palestinian refugees. </s> The United States held back $65 million that had been destined for the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians on Tuesday, two weeks after President Donald Trump threatened future payments.

State Department officials insisted the decision was not taken to pressure Palestinian leaders, but because the US wants other countries to help pay for and reform UNRWA.

But the call came after a behind-the-scenes tussle between hawks who want to cut all aid to Palestinians and officials concerned about the humanitarian and diplomatic fallout.

The State Department said $60 million of what had been a planned $125 million package would go through to keep the agency running, but the rest will be withheld for now.

"This is not aimed at punishing anyone," spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters.

"The United States government, and the Trump administration, believe that there should be more so-called burden-sharing to go around," she said.

"We would like other countries, in fact other countries that criticize the United States for what they believe to be our position vis-a-vis the Palestinians... to step forward."

The head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Pierre Krahenbuhl, expressed alarm and immediately called on other UN members to contribute.

He said the $60 million would keep schools and hospitals open for now, but noted that it was dramatically lower than the $350 million Washington paid over the course of 2017.

"Funding UNRWA or any humanitarian agency is the discretion of any sovereign member state of the United Nations," he said, in a statement.

"At the same time, 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."

The State Department's position raised skepticism in the light of a tweet sent by Trump on January 2, at the time when the $125 million contribution had been due to be paid.

"We pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect," Trump wrote.

"They don't even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel," he protested, adding: "Why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?"

Following Trump's outburst, it was reported that his ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley had been pushing for a complete end to US aid to UNRWA.

But voluntary payments from the US are the biggest single source of support for the 68-year-old body, and other US officials opposed an immediate and total suspension.

Officials said the compromise would allow UNRWA schools and clinics in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in Gaza and in neighboring Arab countries to remain open for now.

"There is a need to undertake a fundamental re-examination of UNRWA, both in the way it operates and the way it is funded," one official said on condition of anonymity.

But, even as US officials said the decision was not aimed at the Palestinians but intended to provoke UN reform, Israel welcomed it as a victory for their arguments.

Israel's UN envoy Danny Danon said the agency misuses aid and "supports anti-Israel propaganda, perpetuates the plight of Palestinian refugees and encourages hate."

He accused UNRWA's leaders of allowing "terror tunnels" to be dug under schools and teaching Palestinian children to deny the existence of the state of Israel.

"It is time for this absurdity to end and for humanitarian funds to be directed toward their intended purpose -- the welfare of refugees," he declared.

The Palestinians also saw the US decision as political.

A statement issued by Hanan Ashrawi of the executive council of the Palestine Liberation Organization accused Washington of seeking to dismantle UNRWA at Israel's behest.

She accused the US of "targeting the most vulnerable segment of the Palestinian people.

"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," she said.

UNRWA has provided health care, emergency aid and schooling to Palestinians since 1950.

The United States has long been its biggest donor, with large voluntary payments topping up the budget that other UN member states provide for the frontline agency.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he had not been informed of Washington's decision, but was "very concerned" by reports that it was in the works.

"UNRWA is not a Palestinian institution, but a UN institution, he protested.
An anonymous U.S. State Department official says no decision has been made on the scheduled January 1, 2018, $125-million payment to the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), which administers aid for Palestinian refugees. Media reports had stated the money was frozen. The official added the government is still reviewing U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority and has until January 15 to resolve the issue.