Palestinian schoolgirls take part in a rally against a U.S. decision to cut funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and in support of president Mahmoud Abbas, in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank on September 26, 2018. (Reuters)
RAMALLAH, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian Foreign Ministry applauded Wednesday the letter of U.S. Congress opposing U.S. government's aid cut to the UN Palestinian refugees agency, calling it "an attempt to rectify" the path of the U.S. administration.
On Oct. 2, 112 U.S. congressmen signed a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, demanding him to retract the decision of suspending U.S. aid to UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem.
They added that the aid cut threatens to destabilize the region and undermines the U.S. ability to overlook the peace process.
The Palestinian ministry said in a statement that the letter was a "positive gesture and a step to correct the track," expressing hope that more groups could join the signatories of the letter to "pressure the U.S. administration to withdraw its decisions."
The Palestinians announced last week that they have filed a legal complaint against the United States to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over moving its embassy in Israel to the occupied city of Jerusalem.
U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel last Dec. and moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the city this May.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future independent state, while Israel wants all Jerusalem to be its eternal capital.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and declared the whole city as its eternal indivisible capital in 1980, but the move has not been recognized by the international community.