"We urge the US administration to reconsider its decision to withhold $65 million in funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees. This amount represents over half the initial tranche of $125 million that would normally have been provided to UNRWA at the beginning of the year. The move will have devastating consequences for vulnerable Palestinian refugees across the Middle East, including hundreds of thousands of refugee children in the West Bank and Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria who depend on the agency for their education. It will also deny their parents a social safety net that helps them to survive, and undermine the UN agency’s ability to respond in the event of another flare up in the conflict. We hope that the US administration and Congress can cooperate in reversing this politically motivated cut in aid before its effects ripple through the Middle East. In the meantime, we call on other donor nations to stand with UNRWA and Palestinian refugees and cover the massive shortfall left by the US administration."
