One afternoon back in 1989, while covering the first Palestinian intifada uprising, I lay huddled against a wall in Gaza’s Omar Muktar Street.

From on top of a nearby building, Israeli soldiers had opened fire on some Palestinians next to me in the street below after they had thrown rocks at a passing patrol. It was such a precarious position, that I decided to make a run for it across the street to the comparative sanctuary of the main al-Ahli Arab Hospital, where many victims of Gaza’s street clashes ended up.

Hospitals though were not off limits to Israeli soldiers when it came to looking for Palestinians wounded in the exchanges.

That afternoon was no exception and within minutes there was an enormous bang as an Israeli armoured jeep rammed the hospital gates, bursting its way into the compound followed by three or four other vehicles.

Soldiers streamed from the jeeps and quickly fanned out, searching the hospital grounds. Some shoved their way past angry medical staff to enter the wards in the hunt for recently admitted wounded and those that had ferried them there.

Anyone, patients, relatives, or staff, who tried to intervene was beaten or arrested.

“Such behaviour is against all conventions and regulations,” pointed out Jorgen Rosendahl, the then Danish Director of Administration at al-Ahli Hospital, as he stood back helplessly and watched the soldiers go from ward to ward in search of the newly admitted wounded. An otherwise unassuming man, Mr Rosendahl was a courageous critic of the methods used by the Israeli Army.

“I have already sent three complaints about the army to the Israeli Knesset, with copies to UN Secretary General Perez de Cuellar, the Danish and American embassies, the Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) and the Red Cross,” Mr Rosendahl told me that afternoon.

I have no idea where Mr Rosendahl is now, but those like him running Gaza’s hospitals today still find themselves facing enormous challenges and caught up in the crossfire of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in various ways.

Currently the al-Ahli hospital is now run by the Anglican Diocese in Jerusalem, and still provides treatment for many of those wounded as well as other patients.

Just like all hospitals in Gaza it was recently overwhelmed by the number of casualties sustained during protests across the coastal strip these past months.

The challenges that Gaza’s hospitals face of late have been compounded because of a decision by the Trump administration to withhold $65 million of a $125 million aid contribution to the UN agency (UNWRA) and partner institutions that supports both Palestinian refugees and others in dire need.

Al-Ahli hospital is just one of many humanitarian institutions and agencies now feeling the profound impact of such a decision.

According to the current head of the hospital, Suhaila Tarazi, who is actually from South Carolina, over and above the protest casualties, al-Ahli is now also treating patients with malnutrition related illnesses, yet has been forced to drop its number of patient beds from 80 to 50 because of a lack of resources.

In was back in January, that the Trump administration suspended the financial aid it provides Palestinians, pending what it said was a review. Seven months later Mr Trump this week announced the US has ordered more than $200 million in economic aid which was to be allocated to Gaza and the West Bank, be redirected elsewhere. While Washington has denied it is using the funds as political leverage, few doubt that this is precisely the motive.

Mr Trump himself on Twitter has linked future US funding to the Palestinians’ “willingness to talk peace,” but relations between Washington and the Palestinian Authority (PA) took a nosedive late last year after the US President announced America’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israeli’s capital.

For their part Palestinians see the eastern part of the disputed city as the capital of their future state.

Whatever the political motives though, it’s hard to over emphasise the negative impact the US funding cut will have on the most vulnerable Palestinians and deepen an already appalling humanitarian crisis, especially in Gaza.

Right now a staggering 7 out of 10 people there already rely on emergency aid, 95 per cent of water is contaminated the electricity supply is often restricted to about four hours a day and unemployment is over 70 per cent for young people.

If the current funding cuts are not restored or if some other donor doesn’t make up for the shortfall, as many as 20,000 people previously employed within the humanitarian sector in Gaza will join those with no work

The freeze on tens of millions of dollars is already hobbling aid agencies that received US government funds, among them the US agency Mercy Corps whose European headquarters are in Edinburgh.

“Humanitarian aid should never be used as a political bargaining chip, irrespective of where people live,” insisted Andy Dwonch, Mercy Corps Mission director for Palestine, responding to the US announcement a few days ago.

“Punishing Palestinian civilians by suddenly cutting food assistance, access to clean water, health services and opportunities to work, risks exacerbating the political challenges,” Mr Dwonch went on, echoing the views of many, including some Israelis who worry that young Palestinians may increasingly turn to violence.

Writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz a few days ago, Peter Lerner, himself a retired Lieutenant Colonel and spokesperson with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) called on the Trump administration to pause and consider such a strategy.

What is needed said Mr Lerner was a “roadmap that uses aid not as blackmail, not as a rushed dictation of terms, but to build an infrastructure for a Palestinian civilian life worth living, and a peace process worth engaging in”.

There will of course be those who will be celebrating Mr Trump’s latest foreign policy decision. But they are misguided in doing so. Wrong because of the profoundly negative humanitarian impact it will have on one of the world’s most vulnerable communities. Wrong too because it will do nothing other than make for more insecurity and instability both for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Almost thirty years on from those days when I covered the first Palestinians intifada in Gaza, it seems world leaders remain hell bent only in making things worse across the region.