Former US emissaries to the UN urge Pompeo to restore funding to Palestinian relief agencies – News from the United States



[ad_1]

Seven former United States ambbadadors to the United Nations under the Republican and Democratic presidents on Monday urged US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to reinstate US funding for the UN agency that helps refugees Palestinian.
The United States, long the largest donor of UNRWA, only provide $ 60 million of the 365 million pledged this year, Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of the agency, told Reuters.

U.S. President Donald Trump refused the aid after questioning his value and said that Washington would only give help if the Palestinians agreed to renew peace talks with Israel, while the US state department said the agency was to carry out unspecified reforms.

The United States is trying to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, but has not yet revealed a peace plan.
"This financial gap is challenging UNRWA's ability to continue providing education and health services to millions of people and has national security ramifications for our closest allies, including Israel and Jordan ". Nations wrote in the letter dated July 2.

Stay informed: Subscribe to our newsletter

Thank you for registering.

We have more newsletters than we think you will find interesting.

Click here

Oops.

Please try again later

Thank you,

The email address you provided is already live.
To close
"We urge you to restore US funding to help fill this gap," they said in the letter, which was also sent to the current US ambbadador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and the US security advisor. national John Bolton.

The letter was signed by Samantha Power, Susan Rice, Bill Richardson and Madeleine Albright, who were appointed by the Democratic Presidents, and John Negroponte, Edward Perkins and Thomas Pickering, nominated by the Republican Presidents.

UNRWA was founded in 1949 to help Palestinian refugees. It serves approximately 5 million Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. It runs some 700 schools, more than 140 health centers and feeds hundreds of thousands of people.
"The lack of desperate resources has a price: more hardship for communities, more desperation for the region, more instability for our world," said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, last week, calling for funding from UNRWA.

"We must do everything to ensure that food continues to arrive, that schools remain open and that people do not lose hope," he said.

More than 130 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza's border protests since 30 March. The largest number of deaths occurred on May 14, the day the United States transferred its Israeli embbady to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

Amidst international condemnation of the use of lethal force, Israel said that many of the dead were militants and that the Israeli army was repulsing attacks on the border fence between Israel and Gaza. Washington has upheld Israel's right to defend itself.

Palestinians and their supporters said that most protesters were unarmed civilians and that Israel used excessive force against them.

[ad_2]
Source link