‘Existential threat’ created by withdrawal of $300m in US funding triggers job losses in West Bank and Gaza Strip

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees is cutting hundreds of jobs in the Gaza Strip and West Bank after swingeing cuts on its budget imposed by the Trump administration.

The loss of 250 jobs in the Palestinian territories, revealed on Wednesday, are the first to be announced since the US withdrew hundreds of millions dollars in aid.

A total of 154 employees in the occupied West Bank and 113 in the Gaza Strip will be released, said Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency, in a statement. More than 500 other full-time staff will be moved to part-time contracts, Gunness added.

The statement said the US cut represented an “existential threat” to the agency, which had been trying to raise the money from other donors.

“The decision of the US to cut $300m [£228m] in funding to UNRWA this year has been described by our commissioner general as an existential threat to UNRWA,” he said.

“As we continue to pursue every avenue of support to overcome a severe financial crisis, UNRWA, its dedicated staff and the refugees have only one option: to face up to this situation together and preserve the most important work we do.”

The agency was set up after the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel, which forced more than 700,000 Palestinians to flee or be expelled from their homes, and has long been blamed for perpetuating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The agency provides services to more than 3 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East and employs more than 20,000 people, the vast majority Palestinians.

The cuts follow the decision in January by Donald Trump to cut US aid to Palestinians, citing the decision by Palestinians to halt contact with Washington over the president’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.

“We pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect,” Trump tweeted on 2 January, shortly before the funding freeze was announced.

“With the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”

Although UNRWA has spent the months since trying to bridge the funding shortfall, those efforts have come amid warnings of the threat not only to the agency’s programmes but to its very existence.

Hundreds of people rallied outside UNRWA’s headquarters in Gaza City to protest against the decision to axe jobs, with one man trying to set himself on fire before fellow protesters rushed to help him and put out the flames.

Gunness said that while UNRWA had raised $238m in new funding, it had not been enough.

Trump cuts jeopardise lives of millions of Palestinian refugees, UN warns Read more

“We are still in crisis. Let no one claim otherwise,” he said. “Our emergency assistance is critically under-funded in the occupied Palestinian territory, where the US contribution for emergency programming – almost $100m per year – is no longer available and has forced us to take mitigating measures.

“In implementing these changes to its emergency interventions in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, UNRWA’s humanitarian responsibility dictates that we give priority to refugees with the most critical needs.

Adding that “ the most impoverished refugees inside camps” will continue to receive assistance, Gunness said other programmes would have to be closed or curtailed, including its community mental health programme.