WASHINGTON- The United States will not provide $45 million in food aid for Palestinians that it pledged last month as part of the West Bank/Gaza Emergency Appeal led by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the US State Department said on Thursday.
The State Department had said on Tuesday that Washington would withhold a separate $65 million it had planned to pay the UN agency that serves the Palestinians, saying UNRWA needed to make unspecified reforms.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert denied the withholding of the $65 million was to punish Palestinians, who have been sharply critical of Trump's announcement last month that he would move the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Trump said in a Twitter post on Jan. 2 that the United States gives the Palestinians hundreds of millions of dollars a year, "but get no appreciation or respect."