UNITED NATIONS: Sweden, a big donor country that has recognised Palestine as a state, warned on Tuesday that any US decision to withdraw funds to the UN agency for Palestinians would be destabilising for the Middle East.

Sweden’s UN Ambassador Olof Skoog said he had raised his concerns with US Ambassador Nikki Haley following reports that the US administration had withheld $125 million in funds due on Jan.1 for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinians.

“My concern is that as we talk about regional stability, withdrawing funding for UNRWA would be very negative, both in terms of humanitarian needs of over five million people but also of course it would be destabilising for the region,” Skoog told reporters at UN headquarters.

The Swedish ambassador said he did not rule out raising the issue at the Security Council, which is scheduled to hold its regular meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Jan.25.

US President Donald Trump earlier this month threatened to cut US aid to the Palestinians, saying on Twitter that Washington gets “no appreciation or respect” from the Palestinians.

Sweden was the first EU country to recognize Palestine as a state in 2014 and is among the top 10 donors to UNRWA along with the United States, the European Union, Saudi Arabia, Germany and Britain.

Israeli occupation troops on Tuesday arrested 19 Palestinians in various West Bank cities, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society.

In a statement, the Palestinian Prisoners Society said that Israeli soldiers stormed the cities of Hebron, Bethlehem, Nablus,Tulkarem and Jenin and arrested 19 citizens.

Meanwhile, US Vice President Mike Pence will travel to Egypt, Jordan and Israel this month after postponing a trip to the Middle East in December following President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the White House announced on Monday.

Pence’s trip to the Middle East will insert him into a debate over the role of the US in any future peace process between Israel and the Palestinians and follows Trump’s apparent threats to cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in US aid to the Palestinian Authority. The president last week questioned why the U.S. should make “any of these massive future payments” when the Palestinians are “no longer willing to talk peace.”

The White House said Pence will travel to the region Jan. 19-23, starting with a meeting in Cairo with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. Pence will also confer with King Abdullah II of Jordan and then hold two days of meetings and events in Israel.

Pence’s agenda in Israel includes meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin, an address to the Knesset and visits to the Western Wall and the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. The White House said Pence will address the need to combat terrorism and help persecuted religious minorities.

Separately, a senior figure in Palestinian hardliner group Hamas was hospitalised in critical condition on Tuesday with a gunshot wound to the head, after what officials said was an accident.

Hamas spokesman Fawzy Barhoum said in a statement Imad Al Alami, a former member of Hamas’s highest political body, was wounded while “inspecting his personal weapon in his home and is in critical condition.”

A medical source said he had been rushed to a hospital in Gaza City.

There was no independent confirmation of details of the incident.

Alami has for decades been a senior member of Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip.