RAMALLAH: US President Donald Trump's administration is resorting to "cheap blackmail" against the Palestinians, revealing its true intentions by cutting more than US$200 million in aid for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, senior Palestinian officials said Saturday. "At the direction of President Trump, we have undertaken a review of U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with U.S. national interests and provide value to the U.S. taxpayer," the department said. "As a result of that review, at the direction of the president, we will redirect more than $200 million in FY2017 Economic Support Funds originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza." “This decision takes into account the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance in Gaza, where Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza’s citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation,” according to a notice relayed from the State Department. Condemning the decision, Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi said the US administration was "demonstrating the use of cheap blackmail as a political tool," and added that the Palestinian leadership would not be intimidated by the same. “It is the Palestinian people, virtual prisoners in an increasingly volatile conflict, who will most directly suffer the consequences of this callous and ill-advised attempt to respond to Israel’s security concerns.”

An executive committee member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hanan Ashrawi, also denounced President Trump’s order to withdraw funds from the Palestinian territories of both the West Bank and Gaza. "There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation," she wrote in a statement. The US administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation and its theft of land and resources; now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation.”

The decision to cut Palestinian funding comes amid a severe humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, where more than 160 Palestinians protesting for their right to return to the areas from which they were forcibly expelled from in 1948 have been killed by Israeli gunfire since March 30 during weeks-long demonstrations near the fence with Israel. The Palestinian leadership has been openly hostile to any proposal from the administration, citing what it says is a pro-Israel bias, notably after Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December and moved the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv in May.
The United States Department of State redirects more than $200 million in aid for the Palestinian National Authority to "high priority projects elsewhere". The Palestine Liberation Organization denounces the "use of cheap blackmail as a political tool".