US is cutting more than $200 million in aid for the Palestinians, the State Department said on Friday.
The funds originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza, would address “high-priority projects elsewhere,” according to a senior State Department official.
The decision, made "at the direction of the president," came after a review of aid programs to the Palestinian territories, he said in a statement.
The move "takes into account the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance in Gaza, where Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza's citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation," he added.
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi accused President Donald Trump's administration of using “cheap blackmail as a political tool.”
“The Palestinian people and leadership will not be intimidated and will not succumb to coercion,” she said, Reuters reported.
Ambassador Husam Zomlot, head of the PLO General Delegation to the United States, said in a statement: “Weaponizing humanitarian and developmental aid as political blackmail does not work.”
In January, the US had already made drastic cuts to its contribution to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA.
According to AFP, ties between the US administration and the PA took a nosedive after Trump announced his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, which led the Palestinians to suspend contacts with the administration and consider that it can no longer play a mediation role in the Middle East peace process.
"This administration is dismantling decades of US vision and engagement in Palestine," Zomlot said.
"After Jerusalem and UNRWA, this is another confirmation of abandoning the two-state solution and fully embracing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's anti-peace agenda."
