AKEL denounces end of US funding to UNRWA

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 3 September 2018, Nicosia

AKEL denounces the US government’s decision to end the funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), an organization which for seventy years has been providing shelter, care and education to the Palestinian refugees living in the occupied territories and in neighboring countries.

This decision follows a series of aggressive actions taken by the US and the Trump Government surrounding the Middle East issue, in order to serve Israel and force the Palestinians into capitulating to the occupation and colonization of their homeland. It is well known that this action was preceded by the United States leaving UNESCO and later on the United Nations Human Rights Council as well because it was supposedly “biased negatively against Israel”, while again on Israel’s demand the US recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the Israeli state, transferring their Embassy there, in violation of UN Resolutions.

The ultimate goal behind the US and Israeli act to end funding to the UNRWA is to undermine the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. Israel is questioning the number of refugees who are entitled to relief from UNRWA, as well as the right of Palestinians to return to their homes, which is, of course, a claim of the UN itself, as demonstrated by Resolution 194.

Schools, hospitals, refugee settlements, educational institutions, health and medical care programs that provide relief to five million Palestinian refugees are now being targeted by the US and Israel.

AKEL joins its voice with that of the international solidarity movement which is standing on the side of the heroic people of Palestine, who will never yield and surrender even to this new US provocation.