“I’m angry,” said Abir Zahran, a mother of four. “I think the Americans want to keep us ignorant. This is their goal.”
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| Palestinian men collect food at a United Nations compound in the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip on Sept. 1, 2018. |
DHEISHEH REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank — As a mother of four, Abir Zahran needs to know if she can send her kids to school tomorrow.
“I heard they’re stopping them,” the 35-year-old said Saturday. “What will happen — do you know?”
She’s not alone: Throughout this crowded camp south of Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Palestinians to whom NBC News spoke on Saturday responded to the Trump administration decision to eliminate U.S. funding to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) with anger, questions and resignation.
Zahran, who has a college degree in Arabic but is unemployed, is among some 5 million Palestinian refugees who are served by UNRWA. The agency provides schooling, health services and food assistance to the families of those driven from their homes after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
This latest decision comes after decades of disappointments that have left Palestinians to confront a failed peace process with Israel, a languishing economy, steady cutbacks in UNRWA services and President Donald Trump’s decision last year to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
“I’m angry,” Zahran said. “I think the Americans want to keep us ignorant. This is their goal.”
On the contrary, U.S. officials claim they're trying to fix a broken system.
A State Department statement announcing the dramatic change in American policy on Friday called the agency — which operates in 58 camps in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan — an "irredeemably flawed operation."
It also pinned the blame on other countries for not doing enough to support Palestinian refugees.
The administration and its allies in Congress also claim that the agency is biased against Israel, overestimates the number of refugees and wastes money.
Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the PLO Executive Committee that runs part of the West Bank, called the U.S. decision “inhumane and reckless.”
“The real outcome of the U.S. administration’s latest unilateral and reckless policy is the destabilization of the entire region and the creation of unimaginable suffering and hardship for the Palestinian refugees,” she said.
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| Abir Zahran, 35, lives in the Dheisheh Refugee Camp south of Bethlehem on the West Bank. |
'THIS IS REALLY SCARY'
In 2017, the United States covered about a third of the agency's budget of $1.1 billion. In January, the Trump administration provided $60 million compared to $364 million in 2017, and called on Palestinians to restart peace talks with Israel.Friday's decision comes as Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner tries to craft a peace plan meant to launch negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinian leadership cut off direct links with the Americans in November last year, and on Aug. 25 the U.S. announced it was cutting more than $200 million in aid to the Palestinians.
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