12:15 PM, September 04, 2018 / LAST MODIFIED: 12:24 PM, September 04, 2018

UN schools for Palestinians defy funding cuts, open on time

A Palestinian refugee student sits inside her classroom as she attends the first day of a new school year, at one of the UNRWA schools, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, September 3, 2018. The United Nations' Palestinian relief agency celebrated the start of the school year in Lebanon on Monday, managing to open its schools on schedule despite a multi-million dollar budget cut on the heels of US President Donald Trump's decision to stop funding to the agency. Photo: AP/Hussein Malla

AP, Beirut

United Nations schools for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are starting the new school year on time, despite the US decision to cancel funding to the international body's Palestinian relief agency.

Students looked giddy as they arrived at the Haifa Intermediate School in Beirut's Bir Hassan neighborhood on Monday and sat attentively through their first language, history, and math lessons of the year.

Claudio Cordone, director of UNRWA affairs in Lebanon, called it a "joyful day," and called on donor nations to fill the deficit left behind by the US decision announced Friday.

UNRWA was founded in 1949 to serve Palestinians who were uprooted from their homes in the war to create Israel.

The Trump administration on Friday called UNRWA an "irredeemably flawed operation" and halted $300 million in planned donations.