Accepting the donation, UNRWA Commissioner-General Filippo Grandi thanked the Dutch Government, stating: “We rely on strong partners like the Netherlands to keep our much needed programmes for Palestine refugees operational. We are extremely grateful to the Government and the people of the Netherlands for their consistent and generous support.”

“The Netherlands wishes to extend its deep appreciation to UNWRA for their great effort and dedication in assisting Palestine Refugees, often under difficult and complex circumstances”, said Dutch Representative to the Palestinian Authority and to UNRWA Birgitta Tazelaar.

She continued: “As donors and host countries alike face difficult economic situations, they have to make choices on how to spend their money, while at the same time the number of refugees supported by UNRWA continuous to grow and the Syrian crisis is creating more challenges. This makes it extremely important that UNRWA continues its efforts to further improve the efficiency of the organization and the transparency of the budget that shows refugees, governments and taxpayers how funds are being spent. The Netherlands has full confidence that UNRWA will live up to this challenge and will continue to support UNRWA in this process.”

The Netherlands government has been a longstanding partner of UNRWA, and in 2012 was the Agency’s seventh-largest donor.

UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions.

In recent weeks, Syrian rockets and shells have landed on the Turkish side of the border, killing several people, a development that US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said raises concerns that the Syrian conflict could spill over into other countries in the region.

Meanwhile the war inside Syria intensifies as 11 people were killed late on Thursday by a blast at a station packed with Syrians queuing for fuel, which has become scarce in the 21-month insurgency against Assad, opposition activists said.

The U.S. troops, who began arriving at Incirlik air base in Turkey, will man two U.S. Patriot batteries out of a total of six batteries that have been promised by NATO allies (Netherlands, Germany) according to AFP.

“The purpose of this deployment is to signal very strongly that the United States, working closely with our NATO allies, is going to support the defense of Turkey, especially with potential threats emanating from Syria,” Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said today.

“Both the United States and Turkey share common concerns now about the violence in Syria and the threat that it poses to regional stability, he added

Germany and the Netherlands are also providing two Patriot batteries and up to 400 troops each.

NATO foreign ministers approved Turkey’s request for the Patriot deployment in early December with ministers saying the goal is to “defend the population and territory of Turkey and contribute to the de-escalation of the crisis along the alliance’s border.”

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen described the situation along Turkey’s southeast border with Syria as one of “grave concern,” adding that NATO stands in full solidarity with Turkey.

The decision comes as the civil war in Syria intensifies and amid new concerns in Washington over the status of the Syrian government’s stocks of chemical and biological weapons.

The United Nations recently estimated that more than 60,000 people have been killed since the uprising began nearly two years ago.