RAMALLAH, January 16, 2018 (WAFA)  – The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) condemned on Tuesday the US decision to cut $65 million in aid due for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) saying this act targets the most vulnerable segment of the Palestinian people.

The US, the largest donor of aid to UNRWA with over $350 million annually, announced on Tuesday a freeze of more than half of its aid to UNRWA that was due to be  paid in January.

US President Donald Trump announced last week that he will cut financial aid to the Palestinians if they do not return to the negotiating table with Israel.

"The U.S. Administration seems to be following (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s instructions to gradually dismantle the one agency that was established by the international community to protect the rights of the Palestinian refugees and provide them with essential services," said Hanan Ashrawi, member of the PLO Executive Committee.

"This administration is thereby targeting the most vulnerable segment of the Palestinian people and depriving the refugees of the right to education, health, shelter and a dignified life," she said in a statement.

Ashrawi said the US with this decision "is also creating conditions that will generate further instability throughout the region and will demonstrate that it has no compunction in targeting the innocent."

"Once again the U.S Administration proves its complicity with the Israeli occupation by attempting to remove another permanent status issue off the table," concluded the PLO official.

UNRWA was created by a UN decision in 1950 to care for around one million Palestinian refugees following their displacement from their country and homes after Israel‘s creation in 1948.

It currently cares for the displaced refugees and their offspring who now number over five million found in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

M.K.