Palestinians protest US cuts and shops strike

(22 Jan 2018) LEADIN: Palestinians are staging strikes and protests amid financial uncertainty. In the West Bank, refugees gathered to demonstrate at US aid cuts while in Gaza, a strike is underway to highlight the poor economic situation under which they are living. STORYLINE: Outside a UN health centre in Bethlehem, Palestinian refugees gather in protest. They are angry at a US decision to cut funds to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. The Americans are the largest donor to the agency but have withheld a 65 million dollar payment. The reductions could impact services the UNRWA provides for more than five million refugees in the Palestinian territories and neighbouring Arab countries. President Donald Trump has blamed the Palestinians for a deadlock in peace efforts and threatened to cut US assistance. "We will continue our movement to reach our right as Palestinian refugees," says Louay Abdel Ghaffar, a Palestinian refugee from Deheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem. "We will deliver a message as well to the United Nations and UNRWA that we are asking them to take their responsibility for the Palestinian refugees." In response to the cuts, the UNRWA has launched what it is calling an "unprecedented" fund-raising appeal. The "Dignity is Priceless" campaign aims to muster 500 million US dollars to ensure that the agency's core services, chief among them schooling and health care, are unaffected. At a press conference at UN school in Gaza Pierre Krahenbuhl, the General Commissioner of UNRWA, says the decision to withhold money was "abrupt and harmful". Around two-thirds of Gaza's 2 million people rely on UNRWA for assistance. Krahenbuhl says the agency will try to create "new funding alliances" with other countries to plug the gap. "We cannot accept that this investment in education, in health care, and in dignity and respect would be interrupted in any way. It is much too risky for the entire Middle East," he says. This month, the US released only 60 million dollars of the first instalment of its annual contribution, withholding 65 million US dollars. America normally pays 370 million US dollars a year, a third of the organisation's budget. Meanwhile in Gaza, shops, workshops and many other businesses are on a partial strike protesting economic recession and decline. Notices hang on the shuttered doors read "we want to live" and "enough of siege," referring to an Israeli-Egyptian blockade and restriction imposed on the territory after the militant Hamas group took it over in 2007. Private-sector organisations have called for the protest and non-member businesses have joined in willingly, turning the protest into a Gaza-wide strike. "In the last year or 10 months things have become very bad. Gaza can't afford more sieges. It needs an urgent and quick solution," says striking car dealer Maher Ziara. In the third quarter of 2017, the unemployment rate in Gaza was 46.6 percent, according to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...