JERUSALEM: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. They also could endanger the tenuous truce, which the Trump administration helped cement.
USAID was supposed to fund much of the aid to Gaza as the ceasefire progressed, and the Trump administration approved over $383 million on Jan. 31 to that end, according to three USAID officials.
But since then, there have been no confirmed payments to any partners in the Middle East, they said. The officials, who have survived multiple rounds of furloughs, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
Two senior officials at aid organizations confirmed they have not received any of the promised funds, after spending millions of dollars on supplies and services. They said they could not afford to continue aid operations indefinitely.
Some organizations have already reported laying off workers and scaling down operations, according to internal USAID information shared with the AP.
That could imperil the ceasefire, under which Hamas is supposed to release hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners and ramping up the entry of humanitarian assistance.
“The US established very specific, concrete commitments for aid delivery under the ceasefire, and there is no way ... to fulfill those as long as the funding freeze is in place,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and a former USAID official.
USAID has been one of the biggest targets of a broad campaign by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to slash the size of the federal government.
USAID payments frozen, some NGOs scale down Gaza response
Before Trump took office, USAID had roughly $446 million to disperse to partner organizations in Gaza in 2025, the USAID officials said.
But after Trump froze global foreign assistance, USAID’s Gaza team had to submit a waiver to ensure the funds for Gaza aid could continue to flow. They received approval Jan. 31 to secure over $383 million in funding, less than two weeks after the US-brokered ceasefire was reached.
Some $40 million was subsequently cut under a measure that no money be provided for aid in the form of direct cash assistance.
USAID then signed contracts with eight partner organizations, including prominent NGOs and UN agencies, awarding them money to flood supplies and services into Gaza. Then, the officials said, they began hearing that organizations were not receiving the promised payments — even as they had already spent millions, expecting USAID reimbursement.
Some of those organizations are now spending less and scaling back programs.
The International Medical Corps, a global nonprofit that provides medical and development assistance, was awarded $12 million to continue operations at two hospitals in Gaza. These include the largest field hospital in Gaza, whose construction was funded by USAID at the request of the Israeli government, according to internal USAID information.
It has now requested payback of over $1 million, said one USAID official, adding that the freeze has forced the organization to lay off some 700 staff members and offer only basic services at the hospitals, with a skeletal crew.
A former IMC staffer, who quit citing lack of stability, said the program providing life-saving treatment for malnutrition was almost frozen for lack of funds. The former staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the organization’s details, said the current nutrition services were at a minimum level.
Meanwhile, termination letters severing the contracts between USAID and Gaza partners were also sent out to organizations that were major providers of shelter, child protection and logistical support in the Gaza aid operation, a USAID official said.
Some of the termination letters seen by the AP were signed by new USAID deputy chief Peter Marocco — a returning political appointee from Trump’s first term. They instruct organizations to “immediately cease” all activities and “avoid additional spending chargeable to the award,” citing a directive from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
USAID Gaza response in crisis as truce is tenuous
In addition to the spending freeze, officials say USAID has been wracked by internal chaos and the introduction of arbitrary regulations since the new administration took office.
During the first 42-day phase of the ceasefire, Israel had to allow at least 600 trucks of aid into Gaza a day, as well as 60,000 temporary homes and 200,000 tents.
Two USAID officials said the agency was originally supposed to buy 400 temporary homes that would make it into Gaza by the end of Phase 1 of the deal, and over 5,200 more during the next phase. That figure has since been slashed to just over 1,000.
USAID was never able to purchase the mobile homes because of newly-imposed policies requiring extra approvals for procurements.
On Feb. 2, some 40 percent of the Gaza team was locked out of their email accounts and software necessary to track awards, move payments and communicate with the organizations. An email sent immediately following the lockout came from Gavin Kliger, a DOGE staffer.
Access to the servers has now been restored, the officials said, but the team is smaller after waves of layoffs. From an original team of about 30 people, only six or seven remain.
Very few mobile homes entered Gaza during Phase 1 of the ceasefire, which ended last week, prompting Hamas to accuse Israel of violating the truce.
Israel has cut off all aid shipments into Gaza in a bid to pressure Hamas to accept an extension of the ceasefire. That has sent aid groups scrambling to distribute reserves of food and shelter to the most needy. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is considering cutting off electricity to raise the pressure on Hamas.
With USAID in flux, the US risks losing its influence, said Dave Harden, the former USAID assistant administrator of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Aid and a longtime director of the agency’s work in the Palestinian territories.
“US aid assistance to Palestinians ... never, ever equated to US assistance to Israel, never quite balanced, but always gave us a seat at the table, always helped us to have real discussions with both the Palestinians and the Israelis about what the future might hold,” Harden said.
Now, he said, “We’re just simply not at the table in a meaningful way, and so I think the ceasefire is fragile.”
Aid operations in Gaza imperiled as millions of promised USAID dollars do not arrive
https://arab.news/4m9n3
Aid operations in Gaza imperiled as millions of promised USAID dollars do not arrive
- The cutbacks threaten to halt the small gains aid workers have made combatting Gaza’s humanitarian crisis during the Israel-Hamas ceasefire
- But since then, there have been no confirmed payments to any partners in the Middle East, they said
Could Lebanon’s bid for direct Israel talks reshape a decades-long conflict?
- Beirut proposes unprecedented ministerial-level negotiations with Israel as war devastates Lebanon and diplomacy struggles
- Analysts say direct talks could redefine Lebanon’s sovereignty but risk deepening divisions and confrontation with Hezbollah
BEIRUT/LONDON: As a Lebanese delegation starts taking shape to hold direct talks with Israel, the people of Lebanon remain trapped in the crossfire between Israel and Hezbollah, victims of a conflict their country neither sought nor wanted.
This time, however, amid the renewed suffering, destruction and mass displacement of Lebanon’s citizens, a cautious hope is taking hold that a historic peace initiative proposed by the Lebanese government could pave the way to an end to the country’s decades of turmoil.
Lebanon has formally asked the US and other countries to broker direct talks with Israel, proposing Cyprus as a neutral venue for ministerial-level negotiations.
The move is being hailed as the most ambitious diplomatic overture Beirut has made toward Tel Aviv in a generation, and its potential historic significance is not lost on analysts.
“Any talks between two countries that have been for so long in the state of war is important,” said Yossi Mekelberg, professor of international relations and associate fellow of the MENA Programme at Chatham House.
“If you look at the underlying differences between Israel and Lebanon, and you take Hezbollah and Iran out of the equation, they are minimal.”
Furthermore, he added, “the Lebanese army is doing better than they did in the past, I think it’s asserting itself.
“When Hezbollah is on the wrong foot, there is an opportunity … and Israel and Lebanon are not interested in fighting one another.”
But no one is under any illusion that the path forward will be easy.
The formal request for direct peace talks with Israel was conveyed to Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkiye and special envoy to Syria, by Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.
Cyprus has confirmed its willingness to host talks, but no date has been set as yet.
The proposal has already hit its first wall. Beirut has insisted that any meeting must be preceded by a “full cessation” of hostilities — stopping short of formally calling it a ceasefire. Israel has rejected the condition outright, saying talks must proceed while fighting continues.
But President Aoun continues to work the phones. Minister of Information Paul Morcos told Arab News that Aoun has been reaching out to the French president, the US ambassador, and a number of European leaders.
Former Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti endorsed the approach. “The most important thing is to put such a proposal on the table, and this requires Arab and international contacts,” he told Arab News.
Political analyst Walid Choucair was blunter. Israel, he said, “no longer views (the Lebanese state) as a capable partner for commitment or implementation,” and it “has decided to move from the logic of containment to the logic of a decisive resolution.”
Beirut, he said, should move quickly and look to a recent regional precedent. “Syria resorted to direct negotiation. Why should Lebanon not do so?”
A constitutional judicial source, who requested anonymity, told Arab News that the question of direct negotiations “is highly sensitive — it cannot be discussed constitutionally in isolation from politics, which is linked to the Israeli-US war on Iran and its ramifications in Lebanon. The two issues cannot be separated.”
At the political level, according to the judicial source, the president cannot be prevented from exercising his right to negotiate, but they warned that Lebanon’s deep parliamentary divisions made the path treacherous.
“What is required is a unified Lebanese position that does not result in divisions that are dangerous for Lebanon’s future,” the source told Arab News.
The fear runs deeper than political fracture. Moving against Hezbollah while Israeli bombardment continues risks a direct clash between the army and the group.
Any such confrontation could shatter both domestic stability and the unity of the military establishment at the worst possible moment.
Enforcement of any agreement would present its own dilemma. The UN Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, has documented thousands of Israeli violations since November 2024 without any mechanism to impose consequences.
The Lebanese Armed Forces has deployed south of the Litani River and claims to have dismantled Hezbollah’s visible military infrastructure, but so far Israel has dismissed those efforts as insufficient and has continued striking regardless.
The diplomatic initiative comes against the backdrop of rapidly escalating violence which began when Hezbollah launched a wave of missile and drone attacks against Israeli military installations in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Khamenei died in an Israeli airstrike on Feb. 28, in the first wave of Israel’s surprise attack on Iran.
Israel has responded to Hezbollah’s intervention with overwhelming force.
In addition to pounding Hezbollah positions across south Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs, the Israeli military has been accused by Human Rights Watch of illegally using banned incendiary white phosphorus munitions over homes in the southern Lebanese town of Yohmor.
According to Lebanese authorities, so far nearly 600 people have been killed and more than 750,000 have been displaced in the current conflict.
One possible path forward proposed by Lebanese economist and political adviser Nadim Shehadi would be a new border agreement covering demarcation, security arrangements and the replacement of the 1949 armistice, without it constituting normalization or a formal peace treaty.
Such a deal would allow Lebanon to maintain its commitment to the Saudi-sponsored 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, under which normalization is conditional upon a comprehensive resolution of the Palestinian question, while still achieving a functional settlement on its own border.
“The talks with Israel are not peace talks, they are direct talks with an agenda to be determined and it is wrong to have preconditions,” said Shehadi. “It is important that the Lebanese state ensures Israeli withdrawal diplomatically and that Hezbollah does not claim that it has liberated them.
“Most importantly — and that’s the most difficult point — is to convince the international community and Israel that Hezbollah and Lebanon are not one and the same.”
Should direct talks eventually materialize, they would carry enormous historic weight.
The last time Lebanese and Israeli officials met publicly was on Dec. 3, 2025, when civilian envoys sat down at UNIFIL headquarters in Naqoura to discuss Hezbollah disarmament and economic cooperation.
This was the first direct contact between the two sides since 1983.
Any formal agreement would be only the second binding document between the two countries since the armistice of March 23, 1949, signed at Naqoura to end the first Arab-Israeli war.
But what is now being proposed is categorically different. These would be the first genuine ministerial-level negotiations in over 40 years and the first ever to take place outside Lebanese territory.
An official Lebanese government source told Arab News its initiative rests on four points: a complete ceasefire halting all Israeli ground, air, and naval operations; immediate deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces to flashpoint areas with orders to confiscate Hezbollah’s weapons, depots, and warehouses; swift international logistical support for the army; and direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel, under international auspices, to implement all of the above.
If talks did begin, the agenda would be both wide-ranging and challenging, embracing thorny issues including the disputed Blue Line, the status of Shebaa Farms, Israeli-occupied Lebanese territory, security buffer arrangements and, above all, Hezbollah’s weapons.
Lebanon would be negotiating from a position of acute weakness. The November 2024 Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions. There were thousands of Israeli violations within weeks, Hezbollah’s disarmament stalled, and the Lebanese economy continued its freefall.
“In the November 27 agreement — violated by both parties — the Lebanese government was acting on behalf of Hezbollah for a war it did not fight and an agreement it did not negotiate, with conditions it has no control over,” said Shehadi.
Any durable agreement, he added, must be state-to-state, with Lebanon negotiating as a sovereign government rather than as a proxy manager for an armed group it cannot control. Hezbollah, in that framework, becomes an internal matter for Beirut — not a party at the table.
The question of who would lead any such talks remains unanswered. The US is the only realistic mediator — Ambassador Barrack has been the channel thus far — but Washington appears skeptical.
“So far, matters remain at the communication stage and have involved the US, France, the UN, Arab countries, and Gulf countries,” an official Lebanese source told Arab News. “However, no road map for the proposal has yet been established.”
Moreover, any formal US-led process would also likely signal the end of the Mechanism Committee, the five-member, US-chaired international body overseeing ceasefire monitoring since 2024.
The committee’s future is already a point of contention. In a meeting with former premiers on Tuesday, Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri insisted it must remain the framework for implementing any ceasefire.
Whether it is formally dissolved or simply sidelined is unclear, but with UNIFIL’s mandate expiring at the end of the year, options are narrowing.
More contentious still is whether Hezbollah should have any seat at the table, even as an observer. The pragmatic case for inclusion is straightforward: no deal holds without the group’s endorsement. The case against is equally clear.
“Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would gain power if they become the interlocutors at the expense of their internal or regional rivals,” said Shehadi.
