Prime Minister says government will cover deficit of Jerusalem hospitals after US cut

The Palestinian government is going to foot the bill for the East Jerusalem hospitals to help them cover their deficit after the United States has decided to cancel more than $20 million in aid to the Palestinian hospitals as part of a US strategy to bankrupt the Palestinians and force them to accept its dictates.

Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah announced the government decision on Monday and said that President Mahmoud Abbas has instructed the government to cover the deficit in the budget of East Jerusalem hospital following the US decision.

“We will continue to meet the basic and urgent needs of our people on every inch of our land,” he said. “Despite the deficit, the challenges, the sanctions and the drop in foreign aid by 70%, we will nevertheless manage” and “we will not trade our national rights for political money.”

Hamdallah said that the Palestinians are “going through a vicious faceoff with American blackmail and unqualified bias toward Israeli occupation and settlements.”

He said the US stopped aid to the hospitals in East Jerusalem and has announced that it was in the process of closing the Palestine representative delegation office in Washington, among many other illegal measures taken by the US to “strangulate our people, its leadership and institutions to force them to make concessions regarding their national rights.”

The Prime Minister said that when the US decided to stop all funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), it sought to end the refugees’ issue and their right to return to the homes they were forced out from in 1948 when Israel was created.