Netanyahu backs USA criticism of UNRWA, says it should cease to exist

Additionally, unlike other refugees, only Palestinian refugees have their own UN Agency: UNRWA.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has privately urged Trump not scale back UNRWA's funding, the Times of Israel reported Thursday.

Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, and is the custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem. "This absurdity has to stop", he declared. "I made a simple suggestion, that the funds for UNRWA should be gradually transferred to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, with clear criteria for supporting real refugees, rather than fictitious refugees, which is what is happening today under UNRWA". In 2012, an estimated 30,000-50,000 were still alive but there were an additional 4,950,000 "registered patrilineal descendants" of the original refugees, 1.5 million of them living in UNRWA camps.

"While UNRWA is far from flawless, the Israeli defense establishment, and the Israeli government as a whole, have over the years come to the understanding that all the alternatives are worse for Israel", Peter Lerner, a former spokesman for the Israeli military, wrote in an opinion piece in Haaretz newspaper last week.

The comments come in the wake of Donald Trump's announcement in December that the United States unilaterally recognises Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The Palestinians have strongly protested the decision, and Trump has threatened to take action against those who challenged him.

The U.N. aid pays for schools and health care for Palestinian civilians who are already suffering too much due to Israel's illegal blockade of essential commodities needed after Israel bombed out most of Gaza.

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Yet it could also have a negative effect on Israel, which also relies on the Palestinian Authority to help maintain calm. After occupying the city's eastern part in the 1967 War, Israel annexed the territory and proclaimed it as its "eternal, undivided capital".

The United States is the largest donor to the agency, with a pledge of almost $370 million as of 2016, according to UNRWA's website.

The U.S. provides about one-third of UNRWA's funding and provided more than $350 million to the agency in 2016.

Mr Netanyahu made nearly identical comments about dismantling UNRWA in June - a message he said at the time he had conveyed to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Chris Gunness, an UNRWA spokesman, said the refugee crisis was being perpetuated by "failure of the parties to deal with the issue..."