The US administration has decided to cut off financial support for Jerusalem hospitals that provide cancer treatment and other critical care for the Palestinians.
A state department official told the National Public Radio (NPR) in Washington that the administration decided to cancel $25 million it had planned to give to a group of six hospitals in east Jerusalem some church-run which provide care primarily to Palestinians.
In the past years US funding covered medical costs for Palestinian patients and children who receive medical care in these hospitals which provide cancer treatment cardiac and eye surgeries neonatal intensive care and children’s dialysis.
“This is not surprising at all. Let America know that all these acts will not change our position toward our cause one bit. On the contrary it consolidates our positions toward every issue including Jerusalem” Adnan Husseini Palestinian Authority minister for Jerusalem affairs said.
Dave Harden a former senior US official overseeing aid to the Palestinians under the Obama administration called the funding cut “particularly vindictive.” He warned it could “cause the collapse” of hospitals including Augusta Victoria Hospital run by the Lutheran World Federation and St. John Eye Hospital.
