Aid operations in Gaza imperilled as millions of USAID dollars ‘do not arrive’

Members of the Abed family warm up by a fire at a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in the Mawasi region, Rafah, southern Gaza Strip (Jehad Alshrafi/AP)

The Trump administration’s cuts to USAID have frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in contractual payments to aid groups, leaving them paying out of pocket to preserve a fragile ceasefire, according to officials from the US humanitarian agency.

The cutbacks threaten to halt the small gains aid workers have made combatting Gaza’s humanitarian crisis during the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.