Trump administration efforts to reduce size The Agency for International Development of the United States has threatened the financing of food, tent and medical treatment for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, according to US officials and workers for humanitarian groups financed by the Agency.
Officials said that the threats of supply chain have risen to risk destabilization of fragile agreement on the termination of fire between Hamas and Israel, which is dependent on a weekly intake of 4,200 aids and commercial trucks on territory.
With almost all of the USAID staff placed on administrative leave by Friday eveningThere will be only a few officials to check out and revise hundreds of millions of dollars in direct payments to partners of the Gaza Agency in Gaza, raising alarm about how these groups will finance their business.
Of the more than 200 officials on the Mideaast Agency team, only 21 will remain in the post to manage the entire regional portfolio, according to the UE -the internal agency reviewed by the New York Times. A team that organizes an ambulance every year in dozens of crisis zones around the world, of which Gaza is only one, is reduced to only 70 staff members from more than 1,000.
It is expected that this will slow down or prevent the food package from the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, as well as tents, mattresses, blankets, hygiene kits and treatment, according to three AID workers. All four people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to newspaper media.
Although the assistance agency does not work in Gaza, she has provided approximately $ 1 billion to help international aid groups on the field since the war began in October 2023 – approximately a third of the total help, According to the United Nations. Hundreds of millions of dollars have yet to be paid and now will never be transferred to the United Nations agencies and other major organizations for help, three officials said.
“They are already fragilely fragile,” said Dave Harden, former Director of the Mission of the USAIDs for Gaza and the Israeli-Cuced Western Coast. “Gaza rescue assistance will be disturbed.”
He refused to comment on the State Department, which supervises the help agency. Jerusalem’s agency director sent journalists to the USAID print department, which did not respond to comment requests. It was unclear if he was still surgery.
The World Food Program, the International Migration and International Medical Corps, which all distributes assistance or triggers in Gaza funded by USAID, has also refused to comment.
State Secretary Marco Rubio said in a television interview This week that the moves did not “get rid of foreign help” but an attempt to prevent the “disobedience of the rank”.
Trump’s administration says that the Agency consumes taxpayers’ money on expensive and unfocused foreign programs that make little for the US people.
Mr. Rubio said that The employees of the agency “take taxpayers’ money and spend it as a global charity organization, whether in the national interest.”
Officials interviewed for this article have said that help in Gaza is a clear example of how the Agency’s work helps in further goals of President Trump’s foreign policy. He has repeatedly called for the prolongation of the coastal fire, which depends partly on the smooth flow of help.
The virtual collapse of the USAID is expected to remove the key form of supervision over this assistance. The agency was supposed to release officials who supervise the distribution of supplies in the territory, said three officials, which made the United States make it difficult to assess who controls and receives assistance in the areas that runs Hamas.
It is also likely that officials who have previously coordinated between the Israeli army, the Egyptian governments, the United Nations and the Private Assistance Group, helping various parties to solve the problems in the supply chain and prevent the soldiers from shooting the convoy for help. The Israeli official, speaking of the state of anonymity, discussing the sensitive matter, confirmed the importance of the coordination role of the Agency for help and said that it was not clear which institution would come to fulfill it.
Some programs for help and development in Gaza and the west coast have already been stopped or limited after freezing in January at most USAIDs of the shooting or suspension of thousands of its workers. At the beginning of this week, more than half of approximately 50 officials working on responding to Gaza in Jerusalem and Washington had already been on leave or had terminated their contracts.
They included a USAID representative who worked from the Israeli military control room in Tel Aviv, helping to coordinate between military and Gaza assistance groups, according to three US officials.
The freezing of the funds has already suspended tens of millions of dollars for gauze, including for water infrastructure, mobile hospital units and psychological support programs, according to one of US officials.
Among the groups of the groups was the International Medical Corps, the Los Angeles Medical Assistance Group, funded by USAID, which runs two large field hospitals in Gaza. As a result, the group said in statement That he can no longer maintain an ambulance that treats up to 200 patients a day, an outpatient department that serves up to 2,000 people daily and a birth unit that delivers approximately 20 babies a day.
Aner, said a help group based in Washington statement That the freezing of USAID supports worth $ 50 million forced to suspend the work on the Gaza healthcare program.
Tens of millions of dollars for the western coast and eastern Jerusalem projects are also frozen, threatening key funds for several hospitals that President Biden promised to hold During a visit to the region 2022.
Ronen Bergman Contributable reporting from Tel Aviv.
