The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on Monday it would suspend humanitarian work in nearly 20 countries worldwide after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a freeze on U.S. foreign aid worldwide when he took office on January 20, Reuters reported.

The non-governmental organisation received just under 20% of its funding from the United States in 2024, or around $150 million, it said, with that funding helping some 1.6 million people worldwide.

"We have, in our 79-year history, never experienced such an abrupt discontinuation of aid funding from any of our many donor nations, inter-governmental organisations, or private donor agencies," the NRC said in a statement.

The agency said the consequences of suspending aid would become increasingly serious for people facing crises around the world.

Already in Ukraine, NRC said, it had to halt the scheduled February distribution of emergency support to 57,000 people in communities along the front lines and had to lay off staff worldwide.

The Trump administration said last Monday it would put on leave all directly hired employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) globally and recall thousands of personnel working overseas, read the report.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that the administration would reach out to USAID to identify and designate programs that would be exempted from the stop-work orders.

However, the NRC said it was unable to take advantage of the temporary waiver unless the U.S. government resumed payments to its partners for work completed before the foreign assistance pause.

"We currently have millions of dollars in outstanding payment requests to the U.S. government. Without an immediate solution we may, at the end of February, be forced to halt U.S.-funded lifesaving humanitarian programmes," it said.

That included supplying clean water to 300,000 people trapped in the blockaded city of Djibo in Burkina Faso, and cutting funding to nearly 500 bakeries in Darfur, Sudan, which provide food hundreds of thousands of people, the NRC said.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) on Monday condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s suggestion that Saudi Arabia’s land be used to establish a Palestinian state.

IEA’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the suggestion is “unrealistic and flagrant violation of internationally recognized facts and Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty.”

“Such statements by Netanyahu constitute a direct affront to established norms and a clear infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinians,” the statement said.

The IEA reiterated that Palestine is “the rightful land of the Palestinian people,” adding that “as long as the occupation continues, the inalienable rights of Palestinian people will remain violated, Gaza and the broader region will remain unstable, and such scenario benefits no one.”

On Thursday, Netanyahu told Channel 14: “The Saudis can create a Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia; they have a lot of land over there.”

President Donald Trump meanwhile has said he is "committed to buying and owning" the Gaza Strip and relocating the two million Palestinians living there. This comes despite global condemnation of the plan he unveiled last week.

He told reporters that he might allow Middle East countries to be involved in rebuilding parts of the territory and that he would make sure the Palestinian refugees would "live beautifully".

Hamas and Palestinians reiterated that Palestinian land was "not for sale".

But Netanyahu praised Trump's proposal as "revolutionary and creative".

The World Food Program (WFP) said it distributed 2,500 metric tons of pulses across Afghanistan last year with support from the European Union, Germany, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

In a post on X, the agency noted that pulses — rich in protein, iron, minerals, and vitamin B — served as a key source of nutrition for 700,000 people across the country.

The announcement comes as WFP warns that an estimated 15 million people in Afghanistan will struggle with hunger this winter.

“Nearly 15 million people in Afghanistan are projected to face crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity this winter,” WFP said in an earlier report.