If elected US president, Joe Biden will restore economic assistance to the Palestinians and reopen the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) office in Washington, reports Al Arabiya quoting Kamala Harris as saying.
“We will take immediate steps to restore economic and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, reopen the US consulate in East Jerusalem, and work to reopen the PLO mission in Washington,” Harris has said in an interview with The Arab American.
The moves will reverse steps taken by US President Donald Trump’s administration.
Under Trump, the State Department cut more than $200 million in aid to the West Bank and Gaza, and $25 million in aid for Palestinians in East Jerusalem, in 2018. However, it did provide $5 million to the Palestinians to help them fight the coronavirus epidemic this year.
The Trump administration also halted all US funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees — an estimated $360 million per year — saying that the organisation was “irredeemably flawed.”
Harris also said that Biden administration would also reopen the US consulate in East Jerusalem, closed last year by the Trump administration.