The Palestinian Authority has appealed to the international community for $350 million in humanitarian aid for next year, according to a press release on Monday.
In conjunction with the United Nations, the Palestinian Authority created the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for 2019 in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The HRP calls for $350 million in order to provide food, medical care, shelter, water, and sanitation services for the 1.4 million Palestinians deemed most in need of humanitarian relief.
About 77 percent of the funds will go towards the Gaza Strip, where more than two million Palestinians live under the rule of Israeli military forces.
More than two-thirds of the Palestinians living in Gaza rely on humanitarian assistance, according to Human Rights Watch.
This year’s appeal is down from $359 million in 2018 due to a lack of available donors, according to the U.N.
“This year’s plan is a new approach, reflecting what we can realistically accomplish in this highly-constrained context,” Jamie McGoldrick, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and East Jerusalem, said.
“We recognize that much more assistance is needed, and indeed we can do much more, but we require increased support of the international community.”
Earlier this year, the United States under President Donald Trump cut more than $200 million in aid to Palestine.
The U.S. reduction of nearly all of its aid to Palestine has further angered Palestinian officials who vehemently opposed President Trump’s decision to recognize the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. embassy there.
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Shaer, Palestine’s Minister of Social Development, suggested the Trump administration is withholding aid in order to try to win political concessions from Palestinian officials.
“The position of the Palestinian people, its leadership and its government is that we will not drop our legitimate rights for aid and money,” Al-Shaer said on Monday.
“The humanitarian context in the [occupied Palestinian territories] is still deteriorating due to the Israeli occupation violations in a time of lack of resources and declining funds because of the politicization of the human aid.”
The U.S. promised to give $365 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in 2018, but has only given an initial payment of $60 million before announcing in August it would withhold future contributions.
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