The head of the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) urged the international community on Wednesday to donate money towards the humanitarian organization, after the United States decided to withhold $65 million from its funding, which makes up half of the total amount of funding received by UNRWA from the US, reported Reuters.

Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbüh added in a statement he made earlier today that cutting funds from UNRWA would bring instability to the region, which is why he appealed for donations from other donor countries and said that the UN agency would be launching a “global fundraising campaign” in the next few days to “capture the large-scale commitment to keeping our schools and clinics open throughout 2018 and beyond.”

Krähenbüh called on “host countries and our donors including those in the region,” as well as “people of good will in every corner of the globe where solidarity and partnerships exist for Palestine Refugees” to “join us in responding to this crisis and #FundUNRWA to ensure that Palestine Refugee girls and boys can stand strong.”

“At stake is the dignity and human security of millions of Palestine refugees, in need of emergency food assistance and other support in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,” he continued to say in his statement.

UNRWA was established by the UN General Assembly in 1949, after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced out of their homes in Palestine during the 1948 war. The agency currently supports five million registered Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. Cutting funds could deepen the critical humanitarian situation for the two million Palestinians stuck in the coastal enclave of Gaza.

In a Twitter post on Jan 2, 2018, US President Donald Trump talked about peace between Palestinians and Israelis, saying that “with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”