WASHINGTON 5 Aug (ANA) - US President Donald Trump and his administration are making moves to strip millions of Palestinians of their refugee status, according to a US-based magazine report.

 

As part of the initiative, the Republican president along with his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, have been trying to disrupt the UN agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, Foreign Policy (FP) magazine revealed in an article published on Friday. 

 

In a controversial move in January, the US government announced that it was withholding $ 65m of a planned $ 125m funding instalment to the relief agency, after Trump accused the Palestinians of being ungrateful for the millions of dollars in aid.

 

Prior to the announcement, Kushner, in a leaked email obtained by FP, wrote: "It is important to have an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA."

 

"This [agency] perpetuates a status quo, is corrupt, inefficient and doesn't help peace," he reportedly wrote in an email dated January 11 and addressed to several senior US officials. 

 

Palestinian officials told FP that Kushner -  tasked with reviving the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process - allegedly pressed Jordan to strip more than two million Palestinians of their refugee status, so the UNRWA would no longer have to operate there.

 

The White House declined to comment on the record for FP's story. 

 

The report also mentioned two bills in the US Congress that try to redirect more funding away from UNRWA, and significantly reduce the number of Palestinian refugees eligible for US aid.

 

Those steps are all reportedly part of Kushner's so-called "deal of the century" to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.(ANA)

FA/ANA/5 August 2018-------