UN agency that provides humanitarian relief for Palestinian refugees facing crisis

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, is facing a crisis. This is the humanitarian agency that provides relief for Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. This includes running hospitals and schools that serve about half a million children.

Typically, the United States has provided about one third of UNRWA’s overall budget, judging the organization to be a source of stability in an otherwise volatile region.

The Trump administration, however, has frozen US payments to the humanitarian agency.

It did so in retaliation to a vote at the UN General Assembly in which member states overwhelmingly condemned the Trump administration’s decision to formally recognize Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel and move its embassy there.

[UN Dispatch]

This entry was posted in Humanitarian Aid, International Cooperation by Grant Montgomery.