With USAID shuttered, Palestine’s most vulnerable lose a lifeline

On Jan. 26, Dr. Sahar Alkawasmeh received a letter informing her that USAID funding to her organization, ADWAR (Roles for Social Change Association), had been suspended for 90 days, pending review. All work was to cease immediately.

Alkawasmeh was stunned: she had worked in partnership with USAID for many years, and had been awarded additional funding mere weeks earlier. But after Donald Trump began his second term by freezing all American foreign assistance except “emergency food programs and military aid to Egypt and Israel,” ADWAR and hundreds of civil society and human rights organizations across the world were thrown into turmoil.

The U.S. government is the largest single donor of humanitarian and development aid globally, and USAID, or the United States Agency for International Development, is the primary agency through which it is distributed. Since 1993, Washington has provided over $7 billion in aid to the West Bank and Gaza, including $2.1 billion to Gaza alone since October 7.

Of the more than 800 USAID contracts suspended in January, five essential projects in Palestine are now jeopardized by Trump’s executive order, a USAID employee informed +972. Current USAID-funded programs in Palestine include water infrastructure, childhood development, and civil society initiatives. This employee, like many sources consulted for this article, requested anonymity due to the fear of negative repercussions for his employment.

While USAID has provided the capital, it is local Palestinian organizations like ADWAR that run and operate the programs. Headquartered in Hebron in the southern West Bank, ADWAR works to eliminate gender-based discrimination and operates throughout the West Bank and Gaza, supporting approximately 6,000 Palestinians every year.

USAID has been one of ADWAR’s largest donors in recent years, contributing around $150,000 annually towards projects such as “Dreams in Motion Initiative: Women Leading Economic Change,” ADWAR’s flagship program, which provides vocational training and financial support to Palestinian Bedouin women. In 2024, this initiative aided Bedouin women in East Jerusalem and the West Bank in establishing sustainable small businesses, selling beauty treatments, handicrafts, dairy, animal feed, bread, and upcycled products utilizing discarded items such as car tires.

By helping Palestinian women achieve financial autonomy, ADWAR aims to encourage their participation in Palestine’s economy, while also changing perceptions of women’s roles in society. ADWAR’s economic initiatives are accompanied by educational ones, including workshops for men and the “Men’s Alliance for Women’s Support” — all funded by USAID.

Before October 7, ADWAR offered all of its programs across both the West Bank and Gaza. Now, in Gaza, the work is limited to providing humanitarian aid and psychosocial support, bringing the community together through art, music, and dabke sessions.

Though ADWAR is backed by other international donors, including the United Nations, the sudden loss of funding from USAID amid increased need is detrimental. Without USAID, Alkawasmeh explained, ADWAR cannot pay the salaries of its highly-trained staff, let alone provide its essential services to Palestinian women. “I don’t want to ask my colleagues to leave,” Alkawasmeh affirmed. “We work as a team.”

A history of conditional aid

Since 1948, the United States has provided aid to Palestinians through various mechanisms, including USAID, the State Department, and other government agencies, as well as through private voluntary organizations (PVOs). Between 1949 and 2019, the United States was also the largest contributor to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the primary UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees in Palestine and the surrounding countries.

But compared to UN projects, which are funded by multiple UN member-states and completed by independent agency staff, USAID fund allocation has always directly reflected American policy goals. Established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to direct “underdeveloped” nations towards U.S-.style modernization, USAID was conceived as a form of soft power to protect and advance American interests in a bipolar Cold War world.

In line with U.S. policy priorities, USAID’s work in Palestine has shifted focus over its five decades of operation. After the 1973 war, the Nixon administration — desperate to sustain ceasefire agreements between Israel, Egypt and Syria — created a $100-million Middle East Special Requirements Fund (MESRF) to identify potential “targets of opportunity” who should receive economic assistance. In 1975, this program was formally integrated into USAID’s work, overseen by the State Department, and supported on the ground by American PVOs already operating in the occupied Palestinian territories — including ANERA, Catholic Relief Services, Save The Children, and Holy Land Christian Mission.

Throughout the 1970s, USAID grants to these organizations funded “self-help” projects in rural Palestinian communities such as nutrition education, woodworking, sewing and knitting classes, university scholarships, healthcare training, and water delivery infrastructure. USAID later redefined and widened its program goals to focus on broader economic assistance in the OPT, directing capital towards agricultural development and loans for farmers, private businesses, and community groups, with the explicit aim of creating “a more favorable policy environment” for Washington.

But despite the significant need for aid and investment in Palestine, the close relationship between Israel and the United States — coupled with the latter’s counterrevolutionary reputation — led Palestinians to view USAID with suspicion from the outset. Indeed, the absence of an independent Palestinian government meant that, until 1994, there was no formal Palestine USAID mission. Instead, USAID’s Palestine projects were administered directly from Washington and required approval from the Israeli government. This meant that grants were directly shaped by Israeli policy concerns, in part to preserve the Palestinian economy’s integration and dependence on Israel, and projects were approved or denied based on the relationship of the group with Israeli authorities.

By 1989, USAID was providing $24 million annually to PVOs in the occupied Palestinian territories, and after the signing of the Oslo Accords, USAID funding was a key tool to promote U.S. and Israeli interests. Funding increased significantly, largely directed to the newly-created Palestinian Authority, and ear-marked for “good governance” projects that would advance “peace” and “democracy.”

Moreover, as USAID and other foreign aid projects ramped up, their Palestinian partners became increasingly frustrated with the bureaucratization and depoliticization of their work. Rather than providing Palestinians with the tools for economic and national independence, the agency was perceived as undermining the Palestinian nationalist project by “softening” the occupation and deepening donor dependence. As one staff member at Defence For Children International-Palestine (DCI-Palestine) explained in 2002, “People can say that Palestinians are suffering, but not the reasons … USAID puts so much money into roads that the Israelis then dig up. They just go in and build the road again.”

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush passed Executive Order 13224 to prevent American money from reaching U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations. This had far-reaching consequences for human rights and humanitarian work in Palestine, as USAID now required aid recipients to demonstrate, through meticulous monitoring forms, that they would not “provide support or resources to any individual or entity that advocates, plans, sponsors, or engages in, or has engaged in terrorist activity.”

However, the entanglement of American and Israeli security apparatuses meant that there was “considerable crossover” between groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United States and Israel. The executive order also detailed other conditions for denying aid, such as writing a martyr’s name on a building, or having a relative in Israeli prison — a common experience among Palestinians under Israel’s system of administrative detention — further cementing, for many, that accepting U.S. funding would be a tacit acceptance of the American (and Israeli) equation of the Palestinian national struggle with terrorism.

Yet, the resultant decision by some Palestinian NGOs to boycott USAID had limited impact, and by 2004, Palestinians were receiving the most donor aid per capita in the world, including more than $600 million from USAID between 2000 and 2004. This would change in 2006, when Hamas’s victory in the Palestinian elections prompted the United States, as well as other Western powers, to sever funding to all Palestinian political parties. All USAID-funded Palestinian Authority projects were suspended or redirected to independent contractors, and the PA were ordered to return $50 million. In response, the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organization Network (PNGO) called on its 99 member organizations to refuse all USAID funding.

A fragile lifeline

From the PNGO boycott until 2016, the United States provided an annual average of $400 million in bilateral economic aid to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, most of which was funnelled through USAID. The first Trump term saw a decrease from $286 million in 2017 to $18 million in 2020, before the Biden administration restored USAID funding to its previous levels. But while the boycott has reduced the potential impact of Trump’s second term cuts, USAID remains a crucial lifeline for many of Palestine’s most vulnerable populations.

In Area C, which comprises approximately 60 percent of the West Bank, Palestinians are prevented from building homes and often live in tents and caves with limited access to energy, water, and transportation infrastructure. Since Area C is under full Israeli control, the Palestinian Authority has no jurisdiction and Palestinian communities are entirely reliant on Palestinian and international aid — forcing some organizations, such as ADWAR, to ignore the PNGO boycott and accept USAID funding.

Since its establishment in 2010 by a group of students at Hebron University, ADWAR has grown to become the primary organization supporting Palestinian women and girls in Area C, who face multi-layered marginalization. The experience of geographic isolation and exposure to military and settler violence is compounded with social isolation, as patriarchal societal norms mean women are typically restricted to the home, with no access to education, social services, healthcare, or transportation. To address these challenges, ADWAR helps women pursue education, teaches business skills to foster financial independence, and equips them with the necessary materials to run their own businesses.

The economic pressures of the war in Gaza have made this work all the more important, yet all the more challenging. Israel’s decision to close its economy to Palestinian workers — approximately 190,000 of whom were employed in Israel and in settlements before the war — has wrought mass unemployment and poverty. Many Palestinian men are now selling juice and other foodstuffs in the street, but women are still expected to maintain the home. With money tight and materials scarce, the small businesses ADWAR had helped women establish are now struggling to stay open.

Even before the USAID funding freeze, ADWAR’s programs had become significantly more difficult to run. Increased checkpoints across the West Bank mean hours spent waiting for permission to cross, forcing Alkawasmeh and her team to wake up early with no guarantee of being able to reach their destination. Before the war, Alkawasmeh regularly travelled from Hebron to communities in Nablus and Jenin; now, it is impossible to reach these communities by car and Alkawasmeh takes most meetings via Zoom.

In the southern West Bank, which Alkawasmeh can reach more easily, ADWAR has long supported Bedouin women to earn an income from raising sheep and selling animal products in local markets. Now, they are regularly called upon to help attain basic supplies like clean water. Bedouin communities, like most Palestinians in Area C, are not connected to water infrastructure and have to purchase tanks that cost between $200 and $300; ADWAR helps to pay for water tanks and pressures the relevant authorities to provide a reliable water network.

However, Palestinians in Area C are particularly vulnerable to settler attacks, including the theft of their flocks. Settler and military violence has increased significantly since October 7, forcing at least fifty-seven Palestinian communities to flee their homes. “Israeli settlers are watching on cameras and when they see the water tank reaching the Bedouins, they shoot the tank and it leaks out. They’re preventing the Bedouins from drinking clean water,” Alkawasmeh explained.

Despite these unpredictable and dangerous conditions, Alkawasmeh is determined to reach women in need, and regularly takes alternative unpaved roads when closed checkpoints require it. “My car is destroyed,” she lamented, noting that she has visited the mechanic five times since the war began. “But I have to reach my target group.”

By the end of January, USAID headquarters in Washington were swiftly shuttered and employees placed on leave. Throughout March, the remaining skeleton crew shredded and burned classified documents upon instruction by USAID’s Executive Secretary, Erica Carr and, on March 28, the State Department formally notified Congress that the organization was to be dismantled and nearly all remaining employees were to be fired.

Though the Trump administration announced the restoration of previously-cancelled food programs in six countries, USAID remains inactive and its website now displays a brief, outdated statement. Former content, including reports, cannot be accessed except through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Alkawasmeh’s emails for clarification and support remain unanswered.