RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) — The United States is giving five million dollars to the Palestinians to help them fight the coronavirus epidemic, a US envoy said on Thursday.
The donation announced by US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman follows years of aid cuts by President Donald Trump’s administration to the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza.
“I’m very pleased the USA is providing $5M for Palestinian hospitals and households to meet immediate, life-saving needs in combating COVID-19,” Friedman wrote on Twitter.
“The USA, as the world’s top humanitarian aid donor, is committed to assisting the Palestinian people,” he added.
The five million dollars will be international disaster assistance from the US Agency for International Development, according to the State Department’s website.
There was no immediate comment from the Palestinians.
The Trump administration since 2018 has cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians. The cuts have largely been seen as a bid to pressure them back to the negotiating table in peace talks with Israel.
The Palestinians have boycotted Trump’s peace efforts since 2017, accusing him of pro-Israel bias after he declared Jerusalem Israel’s capital and later moved the American embassy there from Tel Aviv.
Trump released his Middle East plan in January. Israel embraced it, while the Palestinians rejected it out of hand, in part because it endorsed Israel keeping its settlements in West Bank territory it captured the 1967 war.
Reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Rami Ayyub in Tel Aviv; Editing by Lisa Shumaker
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Image: Members of Palestinian Hamas security forces wear protective gear as precaution against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at Rafah border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip April 13, 2020. (REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File Photo)
