According to workers for humanitarian groups by US officials and agency, the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the United States agency for international development have made food, tents and medical treatment for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza. Financial support has endangered.
Threats to aid supply chain are threatening to destabilize the fragile ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, which is permanent on the weekly entry of 4,200 aid and commercial trucks in the area, officials said.
On Friday night, almost all USAID staff is ready to keep on administrative departure, just to sign and audit millions of dollars in residual payments to agency partners on Earth in Gaza A handful of officials will be left. How will those groups fund their work about this?
According to an email from an internal agency reviewed by the New York Times, more than 200 officials in the agency’s midst team, only 21 will be in the post to handle their entire regional portfolio. The team that arranges emergency aid every year in dozens of crisis areas around the world, in which Gaza was only one, is less than only 70 members of more than a thousand staff.
According to three officials and a rescue worker, it will slow down or prevent the supply of food packages to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, as well as slowing or preventing tents, mattresses, blankets, hygiene kits and medical treatment. The four men spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not have the option to talk to the news media.
Although the relief agency does not work inside Gaza, it has provided nearly $ 1 billion in aid to international aid groups since the war began in October 2023. According to the United Nations. Three officials said that hundreds of millions of dollars are yet to be delivered and it can never be transferred to UN agencies and other major aid organizations.
“They are already making the delicate ceasefire more critical,” said Dave Harden, a former US Aid Mission director from the Gaza and Israeli -occupied West Bank. “Gaza is about to interfere with life -saving aid.”
The State Department, which oversees the relief agency, refused to comment. In Jerusalem, the director of the agency handed over the reporters to the USAID Press Department, which did not respond to the commentary requests. It was unclear whether it still worked.
The World Food Program, the International Organization for Migration and International Medical Corps, all of which distributes aid or running projects in Gaza by USAID, also refused to comment.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio Said in a television interview This week that these measures were not about “getting rid of foreign aid,” but an attempt by non -co -operative workers to stop the “ranking classification”.
The Trump administration says the agency spends money on taxpayers’ expensive and extraordinary overseas programs that work very little for the American people.
Mr. Robio Said Agency employees “taxpayers take money and they spend it as a global charity, whether in the national interest or not.”
Interviewing officials for this article said Gaza’s aid was a clear example of how the agency’s job was helping to further the goals of President Trump’s foreign policy goals. It has repeatedly called for an expansion of ceasefire fires, which depends on the smooth flow of aid.
It is expected that the virtual elimination of USAID will eliminate an important form of surveillance while providing this aid. Three officials said the agency had stopped officials who oversee the distribution of goods inside the area, three officials said it was difficult for the United States to guess who control and assist in Hamas -administered areas. Receives
It is likely that even before this, there was harmony between the Israeli army, the Egyptian government, the UN and private aid groups, which helped various parties to help solve problems in the supply chain and the soldiers mistakenly on relief convoys. Prevented from firing. An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, confirmed the importance of the relief agency’s coordination role and said it was unclear which institution to fill it. Will take steps for
Aid and development programs in Gaza and the West Bank have been stopped or banned in January after the firing or suspension of most USAID programs and thousands of its workers in January. By the beginning of this week, more than half of about 50 officials working on the Gaza response in Jerusalem and Washington were already kept on leave or their contracts were terminated.
According to three US officials, they included a USAID representative who worked in the Israeli military control room in Tel Aviv, which helps to harmonize between military and aid groups in Gaza.
According to one of the US officials, the funds have already suspended tens of millions of dollars for Gaza, including water infrastructure, mobile hospital units and psychological aid programs.
Among the affected groups was the International Medical Corps, a Medical Aid group based in Los Angeles, which funds USAID, which runs two major field hospitals in Gaza. As a result, the group said A statement It may no longer be able to maintain an emergency room that treats 200 patients a day, an outpatient department that works up to 2,000 people a day and a baby’s birth unit that one day Provides about 20 children.
Washington -based relief group, Anira said inside A statement That the US $ 50 million US Aid grant forced to suspend work on a program to restore Gaza’s destroyed health services.
Tens of millions of dollars have also been frozen for the West Bank and East Jerusalem projects, which has endangered key funds for several hospitals, which President Biden promised to maintain during a visit to the region in 2022 It was
Ronin Bergman Coopered with Tel Aviv in reporting.
