Trump Administration Axes U.N. Funding for Palestinian Refugees

The Trump administration has decided to cancel all U.S. funding for a United Nations aid program for Palestinian refugees, The Washington Post reports. In an announcement expected next week, the government is reportedly set to “voice its disapproval” of how the U.N. Relief and Works Agency allocates its funding and call for the agency to reduce the number of Palestinians it considers refugees—which would effectively cancel out the principle of the “right of return” to land contested with Israel. Administration sources told the Post that if the U.N. wants the money, it would need to change the agency’s “rules and the way it operates.” The funding cancellation comes after the State Department announced that $200 million worth of aid meant for the West Bank and Gaza was going to be reallocated to “high-priority projects elsewhere.”