Tensions are rising in the Gaza Strip after a United Nations-led support agency for Palestinian refugees was forced to cut hundreds of employees following the U.S. government's decision to slash funding for the agency's budget.
More than 250 jobs were eliminated last week at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, sparking a wave of protests in the Gaza Strip.
The cuts came after U.S. President Donald Trump decided to dramatically reduce funding by hundreds of millions of dollars. The move comes at a critical time for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, where political and economic sanctions have contributed to unemployment rates reaching 60%, and the area suffers power outages which can last for 18 hours a day.
The funding and job cut will worsen the situation further with a potentially huge impact on the younger generations, according to Mahmoud Hamdan, head of the Teachers' Sector of the UNRWA Staff Union.
"There is a clear threat that if the aid stops, teaching will be stopped, and the fate of a quarter of a million Palestinian students will be unknown. They will be thrown into the streets and left homeless," he said.
Meanwhile, Israel has complained that UNRWA grants Palestinian refugees special status, and has also claimed that some of the union's Palestinian employees support terrorist activities and have links to Hamas.
The director of UNRWA Operations in Gaza, Mattias Schmale, denied these Israeli accusations and warned of catastrophic consequences for the Palestinian refugees who need humanitarian assistance.
"We get money to serve the Palestine refugees. We do not get money to serve Hamas. So I have had absolutely no reports, no evidence that any of the resources we have get diverted to Hamas. We use them to run our services for 1.3 million refugees," said Schmale.
The U.S. had been UNRWA's largest donor, contributing $364 million of funding in 2017. However, this year, the Trump administration slashed all but $60 million that had been promised.
