Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday said that the US decision to withhold funding to UNRWA will seriously undermine the Agency’s efforts to meet the needs of the Palestinian refugees.
Lavrov added in a press conference in New York that his country will consult with the concerned parties on what could be done in this regard.
The US had decided to pay $60 million to UNRWA and withhold another $65 million “for future consideration”.
Earlier in January the US president Donald Trump posted on Twitter that his country gives the Palestinians “hundreds of millions of dollars a year” and does not receive any “respect” or “appreciation”.
“They do not even want to negotiate a long-delayed peace agreement with Israel” Trump said.
The Palestinian factions considered the US decision a “war on refugees” while the UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl warned that the Agency is facing the worst financial crisis in its history in view of the US aid cuts.
Krähenbühl called for launching a global fundraising campaign to keep the UNRWA schools and clinics running.
For his part Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council Jan Egeland warned of the devastating effects of this move on the Palestinian refugees in the Middle East including hundreds of thousands of children in the West Bank Gaza Lebanon Jordan and Syria who depend on UNRWA for their education.
On the other side Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed Trump’s decision and called for dismantling UNRWA and moving funds to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
