Palestinian refugees participate in an English lesson at the Jafna Elementary school, run by the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, in the eastern Bekaa Valley town of Taalabaya, Lebanon, May 22, 2018. (AP)

The United Nations implored member countries on Monday to fill a critical funding gap that the Trump administration created by sharply cutting the US contribution to a programme that helps Palestinian refugees across the Middle East.

The UN held a conference to raise money for basic services — from food assistance and medical care to sanitation — for five million refugees in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

After the session, the UN was still tallying how much was pledged by which countries against this year’s shortfall of $250 million facing the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, which leads the relief efforts.

Supporting @UNRWA is about helping Palestine refugees in urgent need, and building a foundation of dignity and hope for the future. My remarks to today’s pledging conference: https://t.co/aERj89MPog#DignityIsPricelesspic.twitter.com/jIyr5GwvhM

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) June 25, 2018

Pierre Krahenbuhl, the agency’s director, said a 50 percent funding cut by the United States, the programme’s top donor, is endangering basic services such as food assistance in Gaza and medical clinics spread among the five areas, while about 500,000 children may not be able to start the school year.

“The situation of Palestinians is defined by great anxiety and uncertainty, first because Palestinian refugees do not see a solution to their plight on the horizon,” he said at a briefing before the conference.

TRT World’s Frank Ucciardo reports.

In Gaza, nearly two million men, women and children already are experiencing extreme shortages of water and electricity amid tensions that have worsened between the Palestinians and Israel since President Donald Trump opened a US Embassy in Jerusalem.

His administration announced in January that it was withholding $65 million of a planned $125 million funding instalment for the relief agency.

At the time, Trump tweeted that he saw no reason to spend so much American money in return for what he called “no appreciation or respect” from Palestinians.

‘Around $300 million cut’

Agency spokesman Christopher Gunness has said the actual cut was around $300 million because the US had led the agency to believe it would provide $365 million in 2018.

The US government released $60 million so UNRWA wouldn’t shut down, but made clear that US donations would be contingent on major reforms.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said last week that the agency needs to “determine a way to better manage its budgeting and its finances.”

The agency was created after the war that followed the birth of Israel in 1948, with about 700,000 Palestinians living there either fleeing or being forced from their homes. The UNRWA now faces its worst crisis in nearly seven decades, Krahenbuhl said.

In a report to the Security Council earlier this month, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza is compounded by the potential suspension of UN programmes, which are “a lifeline for Palestinians.”