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Palestinian President: U.S. Cutting Aid to Refugees ‘Not a Part of the Solution’

A spokesman for the president said that the U.S. does not have “a role in the region.”

After the Trump administration cut $200 million of U.N. aid meant to aid Palestinian refugees, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that the actions of the U.S. were “not a part of the solution.” “Such a punishment will not succeed to change the fact that the United States no longer has a role in the region,” spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah told Reuters. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the action a “grave escalation against the Palestinian people” that “aims to wipe out the right of return.” On Friday, the U.S. announced that it would not be providing hundreds of millions in aid to the UNRWA over concerns of who they considered to be a “Palestinian refugee,” which calls into question the claims that Palestinians have on contested lands in Israel. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert called the practices of the UNRWA a “irredeemably flawed operation,” and told Reuters that the U.S. would only reconsider giving again if the agency changed their “way of doing business.”