Us Aid For Palestine

US sanctions Palestinian NGO, others over alleged ties with militant groups

The US Treasury Department on Tuesday imposed sanctions on a major Palestinian legal group for prisoners and detainees along with five other charitable entities across the Middle East, Africa and Europe, accusing them of supporting militant groups, including Hamas' military wing, under the pretense of humanitarian aid in Gaza. Those sanctioned include Addameer, a nongovernmental organisation that was founded in 1991 and is based in the city of Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Palestinian group provides free legal services to Palestinian political prisoners and detainees in Israeli custody and monitors the conditions of their confinement. The federal government claims that Addameer has long supported and is affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a secular, left-wing movement with a political party and an armed wing that has carried out deadly attacks against Israelis. Israel and the United States have labelled the PFLP a terrorist ...

Desperate children, adults in Gaza scramble for food as Israel blocks aid

Screaming in anguish as the desperate crowd crushes them against a barrier, young children and adults frantically wave pots and pans at charity workers, begging for a portion of some of the last food aid left in Gaza: Rice. The chaos at the community kitchen in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Friday was too overwhelming for Niveen Abu Arar. She tried and tried, but the 33-year-old mother of eight didn't get to the front of the crowd in time. She left with her pot empty, and her eyes full of tears. Until when will life be like that? We're slowly dying. We haven't eaten bread for a month and a half. There is no flour. There is nothing, said Abu Arar, whose ninth child, a 1-year-old boy, was killed in an Israeli strike near their home at the start of the war in 2023. We don't know what to do We don't have money. What do we get for them? She cradled a toddler in her lap as she spoke. With no milk to provide, she poured water into a baby bottle and pressed it into her youngest daughter'

US reverses longtime stance, says UN Palestinian refugee agency can be sued

The Trump administration has decided that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees is not immune from being sued, reversing the US government's longstanding position that the organisation was protected from civil liability. The Justice Department revealed its new stance in a letter it filed in federal court in New York on Thursday as part of a lawsuit that aims to hold the agency, known as UNRWA, accountable for the Oct 7, 2023, deadly attack on Israel by Hamas. The change in position underscores the hardened perspective toward the agency under the Trump administration following allegations by Israel that some of the agency staff was involved in the Hamas rampage. The lawsuit, filed by families of some of the victims of the massacre, alleges that UNRWA had aided Hamas by, among other things, permitting weapons storage and deployment centres in its schools and medical clinics and by employing Hamas members. Lawyers for UNRWA have called the lawsuit absurd and have said in court filing

Palestine diplomat lauds PM Modi's support for 'a viable Palestinian state'

Earlier on November 29, on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed India's support for the Palestinian cause

New UN aid chief admits to challenges in fundraising amid numerous crises

The new head of the UN humanitarian aid agency says it will be ruthless when prioritising how to spend money, a nod to challenges in fundraising for civilians in war zones like Gaza, Sudan, Syria and Ukraine. Tom Fletcher, a longtime British diplomat who took up the UN post last month, said his agency is asking for less money in 2025 than this year. He said it wants to show "we will focus and target the resources we have, even as crises grow more numerous, intense and long-lasting. His agency, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, on Wednesday issued its global appeal for 2025, seeking USD 47 billion to help 190 million people in 32 countries though it estimates 305 million worldwide need help. The world is on fire, and this is how we put it out, he told reporters on Tuesday. The office and many other aid groups, including the international Red Cross, have seen donations shrink in recent years for longtime trouble spots like Syria, South Sudan, the Middle Eas

About 200 Palestinian protesters arrested outside NY stock exchange

About 200 demonstrators protesting Israel's war in Gaza were arrested in a sit-in outside the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, police said. The protesters chanted Let Gaza live!" and Up up with liberation, down down with occupation!" in front of the stock exchange's landmark building in lower Manhattan. The reason we're here is to demand that the US government stop sending bombs to Israel and stop profiting off of Israel's genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, said Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace, the group that organised the demonstration. Because what's been happening for the last year is that Israel is using US bombs to massacre communities in Gaza while simultaneously weapons manufacturers on Wall Street are seeing their stock prices skyrocket. A handful of counterprotesters waved Israeli flags and tried to shout down the pro-Palestinian chants. None of the pro-Palestinian protesters got inside the exchange, but at least 200 made it inside a securit

US-built pier to be put back in Gaza to move aid, then permanently removed

The pier built by the US military to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza will be reinstalled Wednesday to be used for several days, but then the plan is to pull it out permanently, several US officials said. It would deal the final blow to a project long plagued by bad weather, security uncertainties and difficulties getting food into the hands of starving Palestinians. The officials said the goal is to clear whatever aid has piled up in Cyprus and on the floating dock offshore and get it to the secure area on the beach in Gaza. Once that has been done, the Army will dismantle the pier and depart. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because final details are still being worked out. Officials had hoped the pier would provide a critical flow of aid to starving residents in Gaza as the nine-month-long war drags on. But while more than 19.4 million pounds (8.6 million kg) of food has gotten into Gaza via the pier, the project has been hampered by persistent heavy seas and stalled .

Pro-Palestinian protests dwindle to subtle acts at US college graduations

A tiny contingent of Duke University graduates opposed pro-Israel comedian Jerry Seinfeld speaking at their commencement in North Carolina on Sunday, with about 30 of the 7,000 students leaving their seats and chanting free Palestine amid a mix of boos and cheers. Some waved the red, green, black, and white Palestinian flag. Seinfeld, whose namesake sitcom was one of the most popular in US television history, was there to receive an honorary doctorate from the university. The stand-up turned actor, who stars in the new Netflix movie Unfrosted, has publicly supported Israel since it invaded Gaza to dismantle Hamas after the organisation attacked the country and killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel on October 7. The ensuing war has killed nearly 35,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants. Students at campuses across the US responded this spring by setting up encampments and ..

Israel briefs US on evacuation of Palestinian civilians ahead of Rafah ops

Israel this week briefed Biden administration officials on a plan to evacuate Palestinian civilians ahead of a potential operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah aimed at rooting out Hamas militants, according to US officials familiar with the talks. The officials, who were not authorised to comment publicly and requested anonymity to speak about the sensitive exchange, said that the plan detailed by the Israelis did not change the US administration's view that moving forward with an operation in Rafah would put too many innocent Palestinian civilians at risk. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to carry out a military operation in Rafah despite warnings from President Joe Biden and other western officials that doing so would result in more civilian deaths and worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis. The Biden administration has said that there could be consequences for Israel should it move forward with the operation without a credible plan to safeguard ...

Israeli president says 'two-state solution' not a solution: What is it?

The two-state solution means establishing two separate states for the people of two communities, i.e., Israel for the Jewish and Palestine for the Palestinian people

Biden meets with new US Speaker Johnson, discusses aid for Israel, Ukraine

President Joe Biden met with the new House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries at the White House on Thursday to discuss his request for nearly $106 billion for Israel, Ukraine and other national security needs. Johnson, a staunch conservative allied with Donald Trump, has shown little interest in providing additional money from Congress to support Ukraine in its war with Russia. Biden met with Johnson and Jeffries before a classified briefing for them and other congressional leaders on the assistance package, according to a White House official. Johnson, who inherited many of the same political problems that tormented past GOP leaders and challenged their tenure as speaker, had a busy first full day in office. He planned to met later with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. Earlier, Johnson said prayer is appropriate as a response to the mass shootings in Maine. This is a dark time in America, Johnson said at the Capitol. He added: "Prayer is appropriat

US President Joe Biden seeks $100 billion to arm Israel and Ukraine

More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gaza's population, have fled homes in the north and Gaza City after Israel told them to evacuate

Expectations from Biden to change US policies towards Palestinians, Israel

Muhammed Shehada, a journalist based in Palestine, recently wrote the "Palestine Authority leaders are hopeful- almost excessively- that Biden will reverse Trump's catastrophic imprint on their rights

UN gets $100 mn in new funds for Palestinian aid after US cuts

The Trump administration announced in January it was slashing $65 million this year