The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says it’s holding a special fund-raising conference next month in Rome to make up for a cut in funding by the Trump administration.
UNRWA’s spokesman Chris Gunness says on Wednesday that Sweden, Jordan and Egypt will host the pledging conference in Rome on March 15.
Palestinians collect aid parcels at a United Nations food distribution center in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, January 28, 2018. (Said Khatib/AFP)
Gunness says that “the purpose of the conference is to actively support a collective response by the international community to protect the rights and dignity of Palestine refugees.”
It’s the first-high level conference in response to US funding cuts.
The United States — UNRWA’s largest donor — committed $60 million this year, far short of the $360 million it provided last year.
The agency provides services to some 5 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants across the Middle East.
Israel accuses UNRWA of helping to perpetuate the Palestinian narrative of Israel’s illegitimacy by granting refugee status to the descendants of refugees, even when they are born in other countries and have citizenship there, conditions that do not apply to the refugees cared for by the UN’s main refugee agency, UNHCR, which cares for all other refugees worldwide.
— with AP
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