The United States has agreed to provide the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) with an additional $55 million in funding, according an AP report. The latest pledge would bring the total the agency has received from the U.S. in 2009 to $154.5 million.

The UNRWA was created in 1949 to provide health, education, housing and financial services to Palestinian Authority Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.