UN Palestinian refugee agency work on ‘month-to-month’ basis after US aid cuts – official

The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees has said it only has enough cash to operate until the end of May because of American funding cuts. Elizabeth Campbell, the director of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Washington, told reporters on Tuesday that it is “basically operating on a month-to-month basis.”

“Right now, we have funding to pay our 30,000 health care workers until the end of this month,” Campbell said. UNRWA had only secured a third of its $1.2 billion annual budget, she added, explaining that it was suffering its “worst financial crisis” since beginning operations some 70 years ago.

The agency is trying to plug the $800 million shortfall, at least in part, by appealing to European and Gulf countries for emergency donations, Campbell said.

In 2018, President Donald Trump’s administration halted annual payments of $360 million to UNRWA, which provides assistance to some 5.5 million registered refugees in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.