What shutdown of USAID programs means for vulnerable Arab countries

The Trump administration has slashed funding for aid and development projects, including in Gaza, but experts warn that ending USAID programs could fuel unrest, economic decline, and extremist recruitment. (AFP)
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Updated 09 March 2025
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What shutdown of USAID programs means for vulnerable Arab countries

  • The Trump administration has slashed funding for aid projects it says “do not align with US national interests”
  • Experts warn that ending USAID programs could fuel unrest, economic decline, and extremist recruitment

LONDON: The impact of the Trump administration’s decision to slash $60 billion in aid funding and cancel 90 percent of contracts by the US Agency for International Development is being felt by millions of the most vulnerable people in the Middle East and North Africa.

In countries like Iraq, Syria and Yemen, lifesaving aid programs to feed and provide healthcare for huge populations affected by conflict have halted. In Jordan, hundreds of development projects to boost the economy face an uncertain future and thousands of jobs may disappear.

The widespread halt in aid was confirmed just as countries across the region started to mark the holy month of Ramadan.

In an internal memo and filings in federal lawsuits, the US administration said it is eliminating more than 90 percent of USAID’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall assistance around the world. The memo said officials were “clearing significant waste stemming from decades of institutional drift.”




Displaced Sudanese people at a camp near the town of Tawila in North Darfur. (AFP)

More changes are planned in how USAID and the State Department deliver foreign assistance, it said, “to use taxpayer dollars wisely to advance American interests.”

Many Republican lawmakers believe USAID has been wasteful and harbors a liberal agenda. President Donald Trump has also promised to dramatically reduce spending and shrink the federal government.

USAID’s supporters say the agency not only provides vital assistance around the world, but for less than one percent of the federal budget, it is also America’s greatest soft power tool.

The crisis first arose on Jan. 20 when Trump signed an executive order halting all foreign assistance for a 90-day review period because the aid industry was “not aligned with American interests.”

Within days, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was homing in on USAID programs, and by last week termination letters had been sent to nongovernmental organizations around the world.

Nearly 5,800 of USAID’s 6,200 multi-year contracts worth $54 billion were cut. The State Department also cut $4.4 billion in foreign aid-related grants.

Much of the agency’s vast array of work, from providing food to the starving, healthcare programs and economic development initiatives, has been stopped.

Many promised waivers for lifesaving programs have reportedly failed to materialize.

More than 6,000 of USAID’s 10,000 staff have been placed on administrative leave or fired, and tens of thousands of people working around the world have also lost their jobs.

Control of USAID has been moved to the State Department, which is locked in legal battles over the cuts. The department did not respond to a request for comment.

The MENA region received $3.9 billion from USAID in 2023. The sudden removal of the agency’s support could cause further suffering and instability in the region, Yossi Mekelberg, associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House, told Arab News.

“We’re talking about budgets of billions, which goes to projects between humanitarian and development,” he said. “The minute you take it away, you make people either suffer from humanitarian crises or you stop the development of these countries.

“If you want to maintain stability in the Middle East, which is important to the United States, you need economic development.”

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Below are details of how the shuttering of USAID has affected people and projects across the region.

IRAQ

In a country where more than 1 million people have still not returned to their homes after the war with Daesh extremists ended in 2017, USAID provided vital support to vulnerable populations.

Since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, the agency has spent billions trying to help Iraq rebuild. USAID funded clean water supplies, food aid, healthcare and support for women victims of violence.

The agency also provided grants to grow businesses and boost local economies and funded development projects to improve water supplies and food production.

The amount spent in Iraq in 2023 was more than $220 million, but many of the long-term projects, which have now stopped, were based on spending commitments over many years.

One USAID officer working on Iraq told Arab News that he could not imagine what would happen to Iraq’s displaced population without the agency’s funding.




USAID has spent billions trying to support Iraqis. (AFP)

“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “I shudder to think of the human impacts of this, the lives lost, the time … it will take to ever recover from this. The whole sector is destroyed.”

Before the widespread canceling of contracts last week, he said some UN agencies and NGOs continued with essential assistance as they tried to interpret Trump’s executive order and the promised waivers.

Now everything related to USAID funding had stopped, said the officer, whose decade-long career with the agency was also terminated with 15 days’ notice.

This included assistance to the 100,000 displaced people in 21 formal camps in the northern Kurdish region.

The USAID officer said the halt was particularly bitter for Iraqis given the recent history of US foreign policy in the country.

He said the halting of aid risks plunging Iraq back into chaos by opening the way for extremist ideologies to regain traction.

“We are pulling the rug out from under what the US would consider a critical ally in this region.”

SYRIA

The humanitarian community was just getting to grips with a new Syria after the fall of President Bashar Assad in December.

The approach to delivering aid to the country during its 14-year civil war was hampered by the division of territory under the warring parties, along with international sanctions against the Assad regime.

Finally, it seemed, a coordinated surge of humanitarian operations could take place with new rulers in Damascus in control of much of the country.

“It was the opportunity in Syria for the first time in 14 years to really do an ‘all of country’ response,” Imrul Islam from the Syria International NGO Regional Forum told Arab News.




Al-Hol camp in Syria’s northeastern Al-Hasakah Governorate. (AFP/File)

The war had left more than 16 million Syrians needing humanitarian aid, according to the UN.

Islam estimates that USAID paid for at least a quarter of the entire humanitarian funding in Syria, with the northern parts of the country particularly reliant on NGOs to deliver essential aid.

When the “stop work” orders were sent in January from USAID to the NGOs they funded, it was a bitter blow.

Aid organizations in Syria were left in limbo as most projects ground to a halt almost overnight. The waivers granted for lifesaving aid failed to deliver a release of funds, so organizations continued essential deliveries by running up debt.

Last week’s blanket termination of contracts means that almost everything previously funded by USAID has now stopped, including operations considered lifesaving.

NGO coordination forums in Syria are assessing the scale of the fallout, but already Islam warned that “people will die” as a result.




NGOs estimate that at least 300,000 people would be affected by the halting of water and sanitation projects, and around 600,000 are not receiving food assistance. (AFP/File)

Several international NGOs rely on USAID for 95 percent of their funding and are now deciding whether they will have to leave Syria altogether.

As of February, NGOs estimate that at least 300,000 people would be affected by the halting of water and sanitation projects, and around 600,000 are not receiving food assistance.

In just northeast Syria, at least 2,800 per month would lose access to surgical procedures. “Thousands and thousands” of people are losing their jobs, Islam said.

Millions of people, he added, would lose access to assistance in the north of the country.

GAZA

The USAID freeze has jeopardized aid supplies to Gaza, where Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas and other militant groups has left the entire population of more than 2 million reliant on humanitarian assistance.

It also risks undermining the ceasefire agreed in January that halted the devastating 15-month conflict.

USAID has provided $2.1 billion in humanitarian assistance in Gaza since October 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, triggering the war.

The agency said in November it would provide an additional $230 million for economic recovery and development programs in the West Bank and Gaza.

Staff working for USAID on Palestine have been laid off. The organizations that deliver aid inside Gaza have also stopped working, their contracts have been terminated, and local Palestinian employees have lost their jobs.

“It’s a very bleak picture,” Dave Harden, a former USAID mission director for Gaza and the West Bank, told Arab News.




USAID said in November it would provide an additional $230 million for economic recovery and development programs in the West Bank and Gaza. (AFP/File)

“There’s no people, there’s no officers, there’s no staff, there’s no budget, there’s no (Washington) D.C. back office and there’s no active agreements.”

He agreed that it placed extra pressure on an already fragile ceasefire that relies on a massive aid delivery operation to alleviate the suffering.

“The risks are higher if there is any reduction in food,” he said.

So far, he believed UN reserves of food and other aid have filled the gap left by USAID, but this will start to run out.

Harden said the loss of USAID was not only devastating for Palestinians but also bad for Israel, which often used the agency as a communication channel.

JORDAN

As a long-term, reliable and stable US ally in the region, Jordan was the third largest recipient of USAID funding globally.

In 2023, the kingdom received $1.2 billion from the agency with much of it being used to support economic development.

While not suffering the scale of the humanitarian struggles in other countries in the region, the USAID funding supported businesses and government projects.




In 2023, the kingdom received $1.2 billion from USAID with much of it being used to support economic development. (AFP/File)

The funding was so entwined in Jordan’s economy that it accounted for more than 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product in 2024, Reuters reported, citing JPMorgan.

The cuts in funding have rippled through the economy, leading to thousands of job losses according to some reports.

Rana Sweis spent a year going through an extensive application process to secure funding for a project for her Amman-based media and marketing company, Wishbox Media.

She then waited more than four months before approval came for an $81,000 grant from USAID’s Makanati project, which encouraged women into work in Jordan.

The year-long project started in May 2024 with money released in monthly increments in line with regular progress reports.

When she was told in January that funding would be frozen, her company was more than 80 percent through the promised work on empowering women in the workforce.

This included a 25-minute documentary, social media campaigns, infographics and other multimedia production.




As a long-term, reliable and stable US ally in the region, Jordan was the third largest recipient of USAID funding globally. (AFP/File)

Sweis said they now expect to lose nearly half of the grant but still hope to receive two pending payments left outstanding.

She had to let one staff member go and cancel the company’s internship program. “It’s a big loss for a small company, but what can I do?” she told Arab News.

“People are losing their jobs in Washington, people are not getting all these humanitarian lifesaving vaccines in Africa, and that’s how I deal with the loss we had.”

While she may be putting the impact on her company in perspective, hundreds of businesses across Jordan would have been taking similar or even greater financial hits in recent weeks.

“It’s a shock for Wishbox, but it’s a shock for me personally because USAID is such an integral part of Jordan and the development of Jordan,” she said. “It’s in every sector, in education, in water and in every level, from the government to civil society.”

YEMEN

Yemen is considered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with half of the country’s population requiring assistance, according to the UN.

With one-third of the money to pay for that aid coming from the US — mostly through USAID — there is deep concern about the impact the agency’s cutbacks will have on the country.

The US announced $220 million in additional aid, including nearly $200 million through USAID, in May 2024.

Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the Houthi militia, backed by Iran, took control of the capital and largest city, Sanaa, demanding a new government.




The US announced $220 million in additional aid, including nearly $200 million through USAID, in May 2024. (AFP/File)

Since the eruption of the war, the US has spent nearly $5.9 billion on the humanitarian response, according to a US Embassy statement last year.

One aid worker in Yemen told Arab News that projects across the country helping feed families, providing critical healthcare and improving water sanitation had been halted.

The worker said the cuts had come at a particularly difficult time with the start of Ramadan.

 


Israeli opposition leader fears political violence over Shin Bet affair

Updated 21 April 2025
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Israeli opposition leader fears political violence over Shin Bet affair

  • The supreme court froze the government’s initial attempt to sack Bar, and earlier this month it gave the cabinet and the attorney general’s office until the end of the just concluded Passover holiday to work out a compromise

TEL AVIV: Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said he feared an outbreak of political violence connected to what he called a campaign of hate against the country’s internal security chief, whom the government has moved to sack.
“The red line has been crossed. If we don’t stop this, there will be a political murder here, maybe more than one. Jews will kill jews,” Lapid said at a press conference in Tel Aviv, adding that “the most serious threats are directed at the head of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar.”
Bar’s dismissal as head of the internal security agency has been challenged in court by the opposition, which decried it as a sign of anti-democratic drift on the part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government.
Bar has suggested his ouster was linked to investigations into Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack “and other serious matters,” while Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has warned of “a personal conflict of interest on the part of the prime minister due to the criminal investigations involving his associates.”
The supreme court froze the government’s initial attempt to sack Bar, and earlier this month it gave the cabinet and the attorney general’s office until the end of the just concluded Passover holiday to work out a compromise.
Bar could resign soon, according to media reports, which would bring the matter to a close.
Lapid, leader of the center-right Yesh Atid party, argued that Bar should resign over his agency’s failure to prevent the October 7 attack, and acknowledged the government had the legal authority to dismiss him, provided it was done through due process and “approved by the court.”
But he also held Netanyahu responsible for a campaign of threats levelled at Bar.
Lapid presented screenshots of social media posts containing death threats against the security chief, telling Netanyahu: “Stop this.”
“Instead of supporting incitement (to hatred), support the Shin Bet, the security forces, the systems that keep this country alive,” he added.
In 1995, the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist after a campaign of violent rhetoric against him sent shockwaves through Israel.
Some accused then-opposition leader Netanyahu of not doing enough to discourage incitement to violence at the time.
 

 


Israel cancels visas for French lawmakers

Updated 21 April 2025
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Israel cancels visas for French lawmakers

  • The delegation included National Assembly deputies Francois Ruffin, Alexis Corbiere and Julie Ozenne from the Ecologist party, Communist deputy Soumya Bourouaha and Communist senator Marianne Margate

PARIS: Israel’s government canceled visas for 27 French left-wing lawmakers and local officials two days before they were to start a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Sunday, the group said.
The action came only days after Israel stopped two British members of parliament from the governing Labour party from entering the country.
It also came amidst diplomatic tensions after President Emmanuel Macron said France would soon recognize a Palestinian state.
Israel’s interior ministry said visas for the 27 had been canceled under a law that allows authorities to ban people who could act against the state of Israel.

French left-wing lawmaker Francois Ruffin was among lawmakers who had their visas cancelled by Israel. (AFP file photo)

Seventeen members of the group, from France’s Ecologist and Communist parties, said they had been victims of “collective punishment” by Israel and called on Macron to intervene.
They said in a statement that they had been invited on a five-day trip by the French consulate in Jerusalem.
They had intended to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories as part of their mission to “strengthen international cooperation and the culture of peace,” they added.
“For the first time, two days before our departure, the Israeli authorities canceled our entry visas that had been approved one month ago,” they said.
“We want to understand what led to this sudden decision, which resembles collective punishment,” said the group.

The delegation included National Assembly deputies Francois Ruffin, Alexis Corbiere and Julie Ozenne from the Ecologist party, Communist deputy Soumya Bourouaha and Communist senator Marianne Margate.
The other members were left-wing town mayors and local lawmakers.
The statement denounced the ban as a “major rupture in diplomatic ties.”
“Deliberately preventing elected officials and parliamentarians from traveling cannot be without consequences,” the group said, demanding a meeting with Macron and action by the government to ensure Israel let them into the country.
The group said their parties had for decades called for recognition of a Palestinian state, which Macron said last week could come at an international conference in June.
Israeli authorities this month detained British members of parliament Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed at Tel Aviv airport and deported them, citing the same reason. Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy called the action “unacceptable.”
In February, Israel stopped two left-wing European parliament deputies, Franco-Palestinian Rima Hassan and Lynn Boylan from Ireland, from entering.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reacted with fury to France’s possible recognition of a Palestinian state. He said establishing a Palestinian state next to Israel would be a “huge reward for terrorism.”
 

 


Palestine Red Crescent says Israel army probe into medics’ killing ‘full of lies’

Updated 20 April 2025
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Palestine Red Crescent says Israel army probe into medics’ killing ‘full of lies’

  • Eight Red Crescent personnel, six Civil Defense workers and a UN staffer were killed in the shooting before dawn on March 23 by troops conducting operations in Tel Al-Sultan, a district of the southern Gaza city of Rafah

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: The Palestine Red Crescent rejected the findings of an Israeli military investigation that blamed operational failures for the killing of 15 Gaza emergency service workers, denouncing the report as “full of lies.”
“The report is full of lies. It is invalid and unacceptable, as it justifies the killing and shifts responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different,” Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Red Crescent, told AFP.
 

 


Moroccans protest ship said to be carrying US fighter jet parts to Israel

Updated 20 April 2025
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Moroccans protest ship said to be carrying US fighter jet parts to Israel

  • The protesters in Tangier also called for the severing of diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel, which were normalized in 2020 as part of the US-led Abraham Accords

TANGIERS, Morocco: More than 1,000 people protested in the Moroccan port city of Tangier on Sunday against the planned docking of a ship said to be carrying fighter jet parts to Israel.
Dockworkers and organizations supporting Palestinians in Gaza said in separate statements that the Maersk vessel was transporting spare parts for F-35 warplanes from the United States to Israel, and was due to dock in Tangier on Sunday.
A crowd of around 1,500 people chanted, “The people want the ship banned,” and “No genocidal weapons in Moroccan waters” as they marched down a road alongside the Tanger Med container port, according to AFP correspondents at the scene.

Protesters wave Palestinian and Moroccan flags as they march towards the port of Tanger-Med against the planned docking of a ship said to be carrying fighter jer parts to Israel in Tangiers on April 20, 2025.  (AFP)

Contacted by AFP, port authorities and Maersk did not comment on the vessel.
The Danish company has said it does not transport weapons or ammunition to conflict zones, though it has a contract with the US government and has previously acknowledged shipments that “contain military-related equipment” derived from “US-Israeli security cooperation.”
The protesters in Tangier also called for the severing of diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel, which were normalized in 2020 as part of the US-led Abraham Accords.
There have been several large-scale demonstrations in Morocco demanding ties with Israel be cut since the start of its war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip in October 2023.
The North African kingdom has officially called for “the immediate, complete and permanent halt to the Israeli war on Gaza,” but has not publicly discussed reversing normalization.
 

 


Frankly Speaking: The view from within the Palestinian Authority

Updated 20 April 2025
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Frankly Speaking: The view from within the Palestinian Authority

  • Varsen Aghabekian, Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs and expatriates, says Israel enjoys immunity, has no intention of stopping war in Gaza
  • Warns of regional escalation if lack of accountability persists, insists the Arab League’s peace and reconstruction plan remains the best path forward

RIYADH: As Gaza reels from an unrelenting conflict that has killed tens of thousands and left its infrastructure in ruins, Dr. Varsen Aghabekian, Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs and expatriates, says Israel has no intention of stopping what she describes as a genocidal war — and continues to act with impunity. 

Speaking on the Arab News weekly current affairs program “Frankly Speaking,” Aghabekian urged the international community to step in and halt the offensive, which she said has turned Gaza into a killing field.

“What can be done is a stopping of this genocidal war,” she said. “This impunity, which Israel has been enjoying for a long time, only begets more violence. And today, we see only destruction and killing of more civilians in Gaza.”

Aid to Gaza has been blocked for over a month and a half, and more than 60,000 children face malnutrition, according to international aid agencies. “It’s time to say enough is enough and halt this aggression — this genocidal war with the increasing brutality by the day on Gaza,” she said.

Aghabekian believes the collapse of the ceasefire agreement earlier this year was inevitable, given that Israel’s political and military leadership has made no secret of its broader intentions.

“The ceasefire deal will continue to fall apart because Israel has no intention of stopping this war,” she said. “Its defense minister, Israel Katz, said the other day: ‘We don’t intend to even leave Gaza, Lebanon, or Syria.’ These are very clear messages that this war will continue and will only bring more disaster to the Palestinians in Gaza — and probably the region at large.”

In the face of proposals from foreign powers such as the Trump administration to resettle Palestinians or repurpose Gaza for tourism, Aghabekian maintains that only plans rooted in justice and dignity will succeed.

“We know that the US has unwavering support for the Israelis,” she said. “Any plan for Gaza or the Palestinians must respect the dignity and the rights of the Palestinian people. Any other plan will not work and it will not bring peace to the region.”

Varsen Aghabekian says Israel has no intention of stopping the Gaza war and continues to act with impunity. (AN Photo)

A sustainable peace, she says, depends on international recognition of Palestinian rights. “These rights, as I said, are enshrined in the division plan in 1948. The plan set two states. One state is on the ground today. Now it’s time to materialize the second state,” she said.

She added that the Palestinian state has already gained recognition from 149 countries and has UN observer status. “This is not a contested land; this is an occupied land,” she said. “It is the land of the State of Palestine.”

During his last administration, US President Donald Trump championed normalization agreements between Arab states and Israel under the Abraham Accords. Despite acknowledging the widespread pessimism about his return to the White House, Aghabekian said she remains cautiously optimistic.

“If President Trump wants to forge peace and he wants to leave a legacy of peace, then that peace has a framework and it entails the respect and the rightful rights of the Palestinians,” she told Katie Jensen, host of “Frankly Speaking.”

“So, I remain hopeful that this will get to the table of President Trump and the ears of President Trump, and he sees that the future of the Middle East includes the rights of the Palestinians on their state as enshrined in international law.”

Her comments come as Israeli strikes on Gaza continue to spark international outrage. A recent attack on Al-Ahli Arab Hospital on Palm Sunday forced patients into the streets. Israel claimed the site was being used as a Hamas command center.

“The genocidal war in Gaza is not justified in any way you look at it,” Aghabekian said. “And bombing a hospital that is partially operating and part of a system that has been devastated in the last 19 months is not justified by any means. Bombing a Christian hospital on a Palm Sunday is extremely telling.”

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza came in retaliation for the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, which killed more than 1,200 people and saw another 250 taken hostage.

In 18 months, the war has killed at least 51,065 people, according to Gaza health officials. Last week, Hamas formally rejected Israel’s latest ceasefire proposal, saying it was ready to negotiate a deal that would see the release of all 59 hostages it is still holding, 24 of whom are believed to be alive, in return for an end to the war. Israel had offered a 45-day ceasefire in return for the release of 10 hostages.

Aghabekian said the continued killings of Palestinian civilians — including aid workers — in Gaza are a stark indicator of unchecked brutality. “Even after the ceasefire, we have seen that over 2,000 Palestinians have been killed, and these Palestinians are civilians; they have absolutely nothing to do with Hamas,” she said. “Today, nothing has been done because everything passes with impunity.”

Smoke rises from Gaza after an air strike, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, April 20, 2025. (Reuters)

Efforts to establish peace through regional diplomacy are ongoing. Aghabekian pointed to a three-stage Gaza reconstruction plan presented by the Arab League and backed by the Islamic world and parts of Europe. But she acknowledged the resistance it faces, particularly from the US and Israel.

“We have to continue using our diplomatic efforts,” she said. “We know that this military route is getting us nowhere. And our military efforts are directed at mobilizing the international community with several ventures today on ending occupation. We have the forthcoming international conference, spearheaded by France and Saudi Arabia, to take place in New York mid-year. And we have the global alliance on the materialization of the State of Palestine. And we will continue our efforts on the recognition of Palestine and the full membership efforts, as well as our efforts with international organizations, such as the Human Rights Council and UNESCO.”

Despite the challenges, she sees momentum building. “We’ve seen that in the latest summit, and we are seeing support and unity from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). We’ve seen unity from European countries and others giving us positive vibes about the plan and the possibility of sustaining that plan in the future,” she said. “This is the only plan today on the table that may move us forward. It is very much — there’s a consensus on it, and it is in line with the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002.”

Still, the obstacles remain formidable. Israel’s latest ceasefire proposal reportedly calls for the disarming of Hamas and the release of all living hostages. Aghabekian warned such conditions are unrealistic given the devastation Palestinians have endured.

“A durable ceasefire entails, of course, meeting the demands of both parties, but today, the Palestinians have been crushed for the last 19 months,” she said. “A durable peace should bring them an opening of the borders, feeding the people, starting immediate relief on the ground, and doing whatever it takes to have this genocidal war stop. We hope that reason prevails on all sides, and we reach the stage today before tomorrow.”

Addressing criticism about the Palestinian Authority’s legitimacy, especially in Gaza, she acknowledged that ongoing hardships and political stagnation have eroded public trust.

“If we see something moving on the political track, people will start realizing that there is a hope for the future,” she said. “And today, whoever is responsible or who has the mandate on the occupied State of Palestine is the Palestinian Authority. And that authority needs to be empowered to be able to meet the needs of its people.”

The Palestine Liberation Organization, she said, remains the umbrella under which all factions must gather if unity is to be achieved. “Anyone can join the PLO, but you need to accept what the PLO stands for, accept agreements signed by the PLO, and accept the political vision of the PLO,” she said.

Asked whether ordinary Palestinians still have confidence in the PLO, Aghabekian said that trust is conditional. “I think that confidence can fluctuate based on what is happening on the ground,” she said. “And, as I said earlier, if people see something moving in terms of the vision of the PLO on a free Palestine, a sovereign Palestine, the liberation of the Palestinian people, bringing people a better future soon, then people will rally behind the PLO, and the PLO can look inwards and think of reform of the PLO.”

Speaking on the Arab News weekly current affairs program “Frankly Speaking,” Aghabekian urged the international community to step in and halt the offensive in Gaza. (AN Photo)

Turning to the West Bank, she expressed alarm at the scale of ongoing settlement expansion. “We’ve seen more and more land grab, we’ve seen increased brutality, we’ve been seeing increased violations on the ground, withholding of our tax money, displacement of people, attacks on UNRWA and refugee camps, grabbing of more land for agricultural herding — and this is something new for the Palestinians,” she said.

“There is entrenchment and emboldening of occupation on all levels.”

She called for greater pressure on Israel to comply with international law. “Statements are void if no actual measures are taken on the ground,” she said. “What needs to be done is holding Israel to account.”

Citing hundreds of UN resolutions and a landmark International Court of Justice opinion calling for the end of Israel’s occupation, she said enforcement mechanisms are long overdue.

“There are steps that are doable now in terms of what do we do with settler violence, with the settlers who are sitting on occupied stolen land. What do we do with settlement products? How do we deal with settlers who have dual citizenship. How do we deal with arms sent to Israel or sold to Israel?” Aghabekian said, adding that it was time for the international community to show its teeth.

While warning of the risk of a third intifada, she said the PA leadership is focused on avoiding further civilian casualties. “We do not want to transfer what is happening in Gaza to the West Bank, and partly it is already being transferred,” she said. “So, the leadership needs to spare the lives of the people.”

 

 

Aghabekian said the ICJ ruling provides a legal basis for action. “It has told the whole world that this is not a contested territory, this is an occupied territory, and this Israeli belligerent occupation needs to be dismantled,” she said. “There are steps that are doable.”

The PA is also preparing for governance in Gaza, should the violence end. “The Palestinian Authority is doing its homework and it is preparing and ready to shoulder its responsibilities in Gaza,” Aghabekian said. “There is a plan accepted by 57 countries for Gaza’s rehabilitation, immediate relief and reconstruction. And we hope that we are enabled to start working on that plan.”

However, she said implementation hinges on external support. “Those plans need billions of dollars, they need the empowerment of the Palestinian Authority in terms of actually practicing governance on the ground.”

Asked whether Israel or its allies might eventually accept a modified version of the Arab League’s plan, Aghabekian said all parties must be willing to talk. “It’s a give-and-take thing,” she said. “In the final analysis, what we want is to reach the goal of stopping this genocidal war and letting aid move in and for us to be able to start our relief and construction efforts. If this needs further discussion, I think we’re open for discussion.”

But the human toll continues to mount. “Palestinians will continue to lose their lives because Israel has no intent on stopping this war,” she said. “There is no justification for the continuing of the war, and an agreement can be reached if there is genuine intent.”