United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
Encyclopedia
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a relief and human development agency, providing education, health care, social services and emergency aid to 5 million Palestine refugees living in Jordan
, Lebanon
and Syria
, as well as in the West Bank
and the Gaza Strip
. It is the only agency dedicated to helping refugees from a specific region or conflict. It is separate from UNHCR
, the UN Refugee Agency, which is the only other UN agency aiding refugees, dedicated to aiding all refugees in the world.
It was established following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
by the United Nations
General Assembly under Resolution 302(IV) of 8 December 1949. This resolution also reaffirmed paragraph 11, concerning refugees, of UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which was adopted some 12 months earlier and was passed unopposed, supported by Israel
and the Arab
states, with only the Soviet bloc and South Africa
abstaining.
UNRWA has had to develop a working definition of "refugee
" to allow it to provide humanitarian assistance. Its definition does not cover final status. Its operational definition of Palestine refugee for persons qualifying for UNRWA assistance says "whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948, and 1967 conflicts," This maintained that beneficiaries had to have lived in the British Mandate of Palestine for at least two years before fleeing and must have lost both their home and livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, or be the descendant of someone who had. Most of UNRWA's funding comes from European countries and the United States.
The UNRWA definition is meant solely to determine eligibility for UNRWA assistance. However, some argue it serves to perpetuate the conflict. Under General Assembly Resolution 194 (III
), of 11 December 1948, other persons may be eligible for repatriation
and/or compensation but are not necessarily eligible for relief under the UNRWA's working definition. Thus a person who is not or who has ceased to qualify for the benefits afforded by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, may still qualify for assistance as a refugee by the UNRWA definition.
All Palestine refugees (as defined) who are registered with UNRWA and are in need of assistance are eligible for help from UNRWA. In 2010, there were almost 5 million qualified Palestine refugees registered with the UNRWA. UNRWA provides facilities in 59 recognized refugee camp
s in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It also provided relief to displaced persons inside the state of Israel following the 1948 conflict until the Israeli government took over responsibility for them in 1952.
For a camp to be recognized by UNRWA, there must be an agreement between the host government and UNRWA governing use of the camp. UNRWA does not itself run any camps, has no police powers or administrative role, but simply provides services to the camp. Refugee camp
s, which developed from tent cities to rows of concrete blockhouses to urban ghettos indistinguishable from their surroundings, house around one third of all registered Palestine refugees. UNRWA also provides facilities in other areas where large numbers of registered Palestine refugees live outside of recognized camps.
, Jordan. Its operations are organised into five fields - Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, West Bank and Gaza. UNRWA's Commissioner-General is Filippo Grandi
, an Italian citizen, who succeeded Karen Koning AbuZayd
, a US citizen, in 2010. Grandi is responsible for managing UNRWA's overall activities. His subordinate in charge of distributing humanitarian aid and overseeing general UNRWA operations in Gaza is John Ging
.
In 2009, UNRWA’s total budget was US$1.2 billion, for which the agency received US$948 million. In 2010, the biggest donors for its regular budget were the United States
and the European Commission
with $248 million and $165 million respectively. Sweden
($47m), the United Kingdom
($45m), Norway
($40m) and the Netherlands ($29m) are also important donors. In addition to its regular budget, UNRWA receives funding for emergency activities and special projects.
, with 663 schools employing more than 17,000 teaching and support staff. It has been the main provider of basic education to Palestinian
refugee children since 1950. The education programme is UNRWA's largest area of activity, accounting for half of its regular budget and 70 per cent of its staff. Basic education is available to all registered refugee children free of charge up to around the age of 15. By 2004 there were close to 500,000 students enrolled in 663 schools. UNRWA schools follow the curriculum of their host countries. This allows UNRWA pupils to progress to further education or employment holding locally-recognised qualifications and fits with the sovereignty requirements of countries hosting refugees.
In the 1960s UNRWA schools became the first in the region to achieve full gender equality. Overcrowded classrooms containing 40 or even 50 pupils are common. Almost all of UNRWA's schools operate on a double shift - where two separate groups of pupils and teachers share the same buildings. Not all refugee children attend UNRWA schools. In Jordan and Syria children have full access to government schools and many attend those because they are close to where they live. UNRWA also operates eight vocational and technical training centres and three teacher training colleges that have places for around 6,200 students.
Rations are distributed to families in UNRWA's special hardship category every quarter. The yearly value of the food is just over US$ 100 per person and most of it is received by the agency in the form of in-kind donations of basic foodstuff, such as flour, rice and dried milk. Finances permitting, the Agency also provides small cash grants to very poor refugee families to help with the purchase of items such as school uniforms and school books or as crisis grants, for example if they lose all their possessions in a house fire.
Most of the concrete-block shelters in the refugee camps were built by UNRWA in the 1950s to replace the tents in which refugees had lived since the 1948 war. Others were built after the 1967 conflict. Although most refugees have been able to make improvements and additions to their shelters over the years, the very poorest refugees often live in shelters that are now in extremely bad condition. Wet, crumbling walls, leaking zinc roofs and rodent infestation cause additional social and health problems. UNRWA has been able to repair hundreds of shelters in recent years, often simply by supplying materials while the families provide their own labour. UNRWA is unable to keep up with the growing numbers of special hardship case families who each year join its waiting list for shelter rehabilitation.
UNRWA created community-based organizations (CBOs) to target women, refugees with disabilities and to look after the needs of children. The CBOs now have their own management committees staffed by volunteers from the community. UNRWA provides them with technical and small amounts of targeted financial assistance, but many have made links of their own with local and international NGOs.
The health of Palestine refugees resembles that of many populations in transition from developing world to developed world status. Immunisation programmes have vaccine
-preventable diseases under control, but there remains a high prevalence of diseases caused by cramped housing and open sewers in the camps and high poverty levels. At the same time, non-communicable diseases such as hypertension
and diabetes are on the increase. Birth rates are among the highest in the world, with short intervals between pregnancies. Diarrhea
and intestinal parasite
s are particularly common among children because of poor environmental health for the one third of refugees who live in camps. However, infant mortality rates are lower among refugees than the World Health Organisation's benchmark for the developing world. In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Al-Aqsa Intifada
has led to curfews and closures which have caused a growth in malnutrition, especially among children and nursing mothers. The economic hardships in the territory have driven many refugees away from private health care, increasing the number of patient visits to UNRWA doctors in the Gaza Strip by 61 per cent during the first two years of the conflict.
UNRWA's network of 122 clinics provides free primary healthcare to all registered refugees who ask for it. The clinics are based inside refugee camps or near concentrations of refugees. In 2003 the clinics handled 10 million patient visits - averaging more than 110 visits per doctor per day. Medical services include outpatient care, dental treatment and rehabilitation for the physically disabled. Maternal and child healthcare (MCH) is a priority for UNRWA's health programme. School health teams and camp medical officers visit UNRWA schools to examine new pupils to aid early detection of childhood diseases. All UNRWA clinics offer family planning services with counselling that emphasises the importance of birth spacing as a factor in maternal and child health. Agency clinics also supervise the provision of food aid to nursing and pregnant mothers who need it and six clinics in the Gaza Strip have their own maternity units.
UNRWA provides refugees with assistance in meeting the costs of hospitalisation either by partially reimbursing them, or by negotiating contracts with government, NGO and private hospitals.
The 1.3 million refugees who still live in refugee camps - one third of the total – receive environmental health services from UNRWA. These include such essentials as sewage disposal, the provision of safe drinking water and disposal of refuse. Large scale projects have been carried out in camps since 1989, but many still have inadequate infrastructure, including open sewers. A great many refugee shelters suffer flooding by waste water in winter.
Department (MD) aims to alleviate poverty and support economic development in the refugee community by providing capital investment and working capital
loans at commercial rates. The programme seeks to be as close to self-supporting as possible. It has a strong record of creating employment, generating income and empowering refugees.
The Microfinance Department is an autonomous financial unit within UNRWA, established in 1991 to provide microfinance services to Palestine refugees, as well as poor or marginal groups living and working in close proximity to them. With operations in three countries, the MD currently has the broadest regional coverage of any microfinance institution in the Middle East. Having begun its operations in the oPt, it remains the largest non-bank financial intermediary in the West Bank and Gaza. As of March 2010, it has extended over 202,100 loans across its areas of operation, valued at USD 224.29 million.
Mission:
The MD works by extending micro-credit and complimentary services to small entrepreneurs, households and businesses. This lending is guided in part by economic objectives: to sustain and create jobs, reduce poverty and boost economic security. However, its aim is also to support human development more broadly, by sustaining household consumption and family investments in education and health. Fundamentally, all lending seeks to empower the MD’s clients, and in this respect particularly targets women and youth, as well as other economically and socially vulnerable groups, who face particular challenges in obtaining affordable credit.
The MD conceives of its mission in the context of the United Nation’s broader vision of building inclusive financial services for the poor. Many of its clients manage small, often informal businesses on the margins of the economy. The vast majority are unable to secure affordable credit from commercial banks. Yet if provided with such loans they do have the ability to repay them, while generating sustainable incomes for themselves, as well as their families and employees, many of whom are drawn from the poorest segments of society. The MD’s work is to help close this circle of opportunity.
Outreach:
As of March 2009, the MD has invested USD 174.36 million in the Palestinian economy through 146,600 loans. In order to assist Palestine refugees across the wider Middle East region, the department has since 2003 also maintained operations in Jordan and Syria ─ currently home to 2.46 million Palestine refugees. In the intervening six years it has grown into the second largest microfinance provider in Syria, where it is also the first institution to reach operational self-sufficiency, and the fifth largest in Jordan. In total it has disbursed over 55,400 loans in these markets, for a cumulative investment of USD 54.51 million.
The department focuses its outreach on poor urban areas, which are both centres of commercial and industrial activity and host a high concentration of Palestine refugees. As of March 2010 it maintains 17 branches around the region, employing 310 staff. Seven branches are in the West Bank, three in Gaza, four in Jordan, and three in Syria. Operations in each country, as well as the West Bank and Gaza, are overseen by a field office, each of which is in turn supervised and provided with support services by the MD’s headquarters in Jerusalem.
Products and Services:
Through its branch offices the MD provides a range of credit products. Existing products available in the MD’s markets include the following:
The effect of closures on the Palestinian economy
has caused thousands to lose their livelihoods. It is estimated that more than 50 per cent of the population is out of work -putting over 60 per cent of the population under the poverty line with an income of below US$2 a day. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that close to two million Palestinians, 62 per cent of the population, are considered "vulnerable" because they have inadequate access to food, shelter or health services. The United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) reported a sharp growth in malnutrition
and anemia
among Palestinian
children - marked by stunted growth or low body weights.http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/docrep/006/j1575e/j1575e00.htm
As part of its emergency relief activities, UNRWA provides temporary jobs for unemployed breadwinners - a programme that has allowed the Agency to indirectly support 160,000 women and children in Gaza alone. UNRWA has also increased its provision of food aid. Before the conflict UNRWA distributed food to around 20,000 refugee families, it now targets 230,000 families across the West Bank and Gaza. UNRWA food parcels typically contain 50 kilograms of flour, five kilograms of rice, five kilograms of sugar, two liters of cooking oil, one kilogram of powdered milk and five kilograms of lentils.
The Agency assists the almost 30,000 refugees whose homes have been destroyed during military operations. UNRWA has provided tents, blankets, kitchen kits, medicines and drinking water, as well as cash assistance to help with renting a new home to those families made homeless. The Agency is also rebuilding and repairing shelters. The focus of the Agency's rebuilding work has been Rafah
and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip and in Jenin
camp in the West Bank. In Jenin
a donation of US$27 million from the United Arab Emirates
Red Crescent Society allowed UNRWA to rebuild the homes, infrastructure and communal facilities of the camp that were destroyed by the fighting in April 2002.
UNRWA's health programme faces increased demands in the territories because of the injuries, stress and psychological trauma caused by the conflict. The economic impact of closures is also increasing the demands made on the Agency as refugees seek care from the Agency rather than from private providers. UNRWA ambulances and mobile medical teams bring healthcare to communities isolated by closures for long periods.
The crisis has had a particularly marked effect on the refugee children served by UNRWA's schools. Teachers and pupils are often unable to reach their schools and thousands of teaching days have been lost. Schools have come under fire on many occasions and have been used as military outposts and detention centres. The violent events witnessed by the children have caused emotional and psychological trauma and many have suffered the loss of classmates or family members. Examination pass rates have collapsed because of the conflict and UNRWA is running remedial classes in each school to try to compensate for the time lost to education. The Agency has also hired teams of trauma counsellors to work with those children who have been emotionally scarred by their experiences.
To fund its emergency activities in the West Bank and Gaza UNRWA has launched a series of appeals for funds. The first of these was a flash appeal in October 2000 for US$4.83 million.
In November 2004 UNRWA launched an appeal for US$186 million to cover emergency operations during 2005.
(D-FL) and other Congressmembers pressured the State Department to ask UNRWA to investigate evidence that Palestinian Authority school books used in UNRWA-run schools contained anti-Semitic
statements. The allegations surfaced in reports compiled by the Centre for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, an Israeli-American NGO.
For historical reasons UNRWA schools followed the Jordanian curriculum in the West Bank and the Egypt
ian curriculum in the Gaza Strip
and this practice continued under the Israeli control of those areas between 1967 and 1994. Since 1994 the Palestinian Authority has progressively been replacing the old Jordanian and Egyptian textbooks as new PA-produced textbooks become available. The last of the older books was phased out of UNRWA schools in the autumn of 2004.
In 1999 and 2000, Nathan Brown, Professor of Political Science at George Washington University
, published a study on this subject. Regarding the Palestinian Authority's new textbooks, he states: "The new books have removed the anti-Semitism present in the older books while they tell history from a Palestinian point of view, they do not seek to erase Israel, delegitimize it or replace it with the "State of Palestine"; each book contains a foreword describing the West Bank and Gaza as "the two parts of the homeland"; the maps show some awkwardness but do sometimes indicate the 1967 line and take some other measures to avoid indicating borders; in this respect they are actually more forthcoming than Israeli maps; the books avoid treating Israel at length but do indeed mention it by name; the new books must be seen as a tremendous improvement from a Jewish, Israeli, and humanitarian view; they do not compare unfavorably to the material my son was given as a fourth grade student in a school in Tel Aviv
". Brown also described the research into Palestinian textbooks conducted by the Centre for Monitoring the Impact of Peace as "tendentious and highly misleading". However, in an exchange with CMIP Brown notes "my criticism that CMIP's work is 'tendentious and highly misleading' was made before CMIP issued its 2001 report and could hardly have referred specifically to it."
In 2002, the United States Congress
requested the United States Department of State
to commission a reputable NGO to conduct a review of the new Palestinian curriculum. The Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI) was thereby commissioned by the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv
and the US Consul General in Jerusalem to review the Palestinian Authority's textbooks. Its report was completed in March 2003 and delivered to the State Department for submission to Congress. Its executive summary states: "The overall orientation of the curriculum is peaceful despite the harsh and violent realities on the ground. It does not openly incite against Israel and the Jews. It does not openly incite hatred and violence. Religious and political tolerance is emphasized in a good number of textbooks and in multiple contexts." Its June 2004 follow-up report notes that "except for calls for resisting occupation and oppression, no signs were detected of outright promotion of hatred towards Israel, Judaism, or Zionism" and that "tolerance, as a concept, runs across the new textbooks". The report also stated that "textbooks revealed numerous instances that introduce and promote the universal and religious values and concepts of respect of other cultures, religions, and ethnic groups, peace, human rights, freedom of speech, justice, compassion, diversity, plurality, tolerance, respect of law, and environmental awareness". However, the IPCRI noted a number of deficiencies in the curriculum, stating "The practice of 'appropriating' sites, areas, localities, geographic regions, etc. inside the territory of the State of Israel as Palestine/Palestinian observed in our previous review, remains a feature of the newly published textbooks (4th and 9th Grade) laying substantive grounds to the contention that the Palestinian Authority did not in fact recognize Israel as the State of the Jewish people. [...] A good number [of maps ...] show Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as one geographic entity (without demarcation lines or differentiated colorings). Historically Palestinian cities (e.g., Akka
, Yafa
, Haifa
, Safad, al-Lid, Ar-Ramla, Beer As-sabe’) are included in some maps that lump together the areas controlled by the PA with those inside the State of Israel. No map of the region bears the name of 'Israel' in it the pre-1967 Armistice Demarcation Lines. In addition, Israeli towns with a predominantly Jewish population are not represented on these maps." The Summary also states that the curriculum asserts a historical Arab presence in the region, while "The Jewish connection to the region, in general, and the Holy Land
, in particular, is virtually missing. This lack of reference is perceived as tantamount to a denial of such a connection, although no direct evidence is found for such a denial." It also notes that "terms and passages used to describe some historical events are sometimes offensive in nature and could be construed as reflecting hatred of and discrimination against Jews
and Judaism
."
In 2003, Israel released to newspapers what the New York Times called a "damning intelligence report". Citing interrogations of suspected militants, the document claims that UNRWA operations being used as cover for Palestinian terrorists, including smuggling arms in UN ambulances and hosting meetings of Tanzim
in UN buildings.
In 2006, the UNRWA drew criticism from the US Congressmen Mark Kirk
and Steven Rothman. Their letter, sent to the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
, stated in part: "After an exhaustive review of the UN's own audit, it is clear UNRWA is wrought by mismanagement, ineffective policies, and failure to secure its finances. We must upgrade UNRWA's financial controls, management and enforcement of US law that bars any taxpayer dollars from supporting terrorists." UNRWA responded by showing the results of its school students in Syria and Jordan, who outperform their peers in host-government schools. UNRWA also mentioned the difficult conditions in which it operates: its refugee load increased much faster than its budget, while the tightening of the closure regime since the Second Intifada deeply affected the humanitarian situation in the former Israeli-occupied territories
.
It has been claimed by some that UNRWA is an example of a United Nations anti-Israel bias, and that the Palestine refugees should be treated equally to all others with refugee status around the world. Defenders of the UNRWA put forward the specific legal status of the Palestinians in 1948 who, because they were living under the British Mandate of Palestine, were stateless and therefore not eligible benefits under the common definition.
Critics of UNRWA say that the present definition give Palestine refugees a favored status when compared with other refugee groups, which the UNHCR defines in terms of nationality
as opposed to a relatively short number of years of residency.
Critics of Israel say it should allow the refugees to return, which some say is stipulated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 302 which Israel supported, which would make UNRWA redundant.
Defenders of UNRWA respond that it is precisely the stateless status of the Palestinians under British mandate in 1948 that made it necessary to create a definition of refugee based on criteria other than nationality. Historians, such as Martha Gellhorn
and Dr. Walter Pinner, have also blamed UNRWA for distortion of statistics and even of sheer fraud. Pinner wrote in 1959 that the actual number of refugees then was only 367,000.
Although UNRWA's Mandate is only Relief and Works, the Wall Street Journal Europe edition, published an op-ed
by Asaf Romirowsky
and Alexander H. Joffe
in April 2011 saying that despite UNRWA's "purported goal, it is hard to claim that the UNRWA has created any Palestinian institutions that foster a genuinely civil society. Ideally the UNRWA would be disbanded and Palestinians given the freedom - and the responsibility - to build their own society."
has published a report for WINEP in which he criticized UNRWA practices. Lindsay claimed that UNRWA is not ousting terrorists from its ranks:
Lindsay also stated that UNRWA’s failure to match UNHCR’s success in resettling refugees "obviously represents a political decision on the part of the agency" and "seems to favor the strain of Palestinian political thought espoused by those who are intent on a 'return' to the land that is now Israel". He argued that UNRWA’s education system is highly problematic. Lindsay quoted a number of American researches that defined UNRWA's schools' curriculum as "highly nationalistic" and "not a 'peace curriculum'" and stated that the textbooks fail "to identify Israel on maps", and that they avoid "discussing Jews or Israelis as individuals (which critics argue would
make them more “human” to the reader)"
In his report he also offered suggestions for improvement:
"The agency is disappointed by the findings of the study, found it to be tendentious and partial, and regrets in particular the narrow range of sources used".
UNRWA's Jerusalem spokesman Chris Gunness stated that UNRWA rejects Lindsay's report and its findings
and claimed that the study was inaccurate and misleading, since it "makes selective use of source material and fails to paint a truthful portrait of UNRWA and its operations today".
John Ging
, head of UNRWA Gaza, stated in regards with Lindsay's criticism on UNRWA failure to resettle refugees that he was disappointed to find this issue in Lindsay’s report. Ging argued that Lindsay had "no basis to say that it is UNRWA’s decision because our mandate is given to us. I agree that it is a political failure, but we don’t set up the mandate, we are only the implementers".
Regarding the report portion about UNRWA's schools, Ging said: "As for our schools, we use textbooks of the Palestinian Authority. Are they perfect? No, they’re not. I can’t defend the indefensible."
, by the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon
http://reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/EGUA-7EDQJA?OpenDocument&query=unrwa, and by representatives from the European Union
, the United States, the Netherlands
, Japan
, Bangladesh
, Cyprus
, Jordan
, Ghana
, and Norway
, among others. In 2007, the Permanent Representative of Norway to the United Nations described his country as a "strong supporter" of UNRWA, which acts as "a safety net" for the Palestine refugees, providing them with "immediate relief, basic services and the possibility of a life in dignity." The same day, the Representative of Iceland
praised the fact that
Gershon Kedar, Israel's delegate to the fourth committee, confirmed Israel's support for the UNRWA: "My delegation wishes to inform the Committee that despite our concerns regarding the politicization of UNRWA, Israel supports its humanitarian mission, and will continue to work in a spirit of dialogue and cooperation with the agency under the leadership of its Commissioner-General, Karen Honing AbuZayd."
, Israel requested that the UNRWA continue its operations there, and agreed to facilitate them. In the years since, relations between Israel and UNRWA have found themselves subject to the varying intensities of conflict that have continued to rock the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. During the Al-Aqsa Intifada
, which started in late 2000, UNRWA often complained that Israeli road closures, curfew
s and checkpoint
s in the West Bank and Gaza have interfered with its ability to carry out its humanitarian mandate. The Agency has also complained that large scale house demolition
s in the Gaza Strip have left over 30,000 people homeless. Israel justifies the demolitions as anti-terrorism measures.
Relations between UNRWA and Israel have often been strained. UNRWA has been under routine attack from the Israeli government and politicians for alleged involvement with Palestinian militant groups, such as Hamas
. For example, the Israel Defence Force released a video from May 2004, in which armed Palestinian militants carry an injured colleague into an UNRWA ambulance, before boarding with him. The ambulance driver requested that the armed men leave, but was threatened and told to drive to a hospital. UNRWA issued a plea http://www.un.org/unrwa/news/releases/pr-2004/hqg-0904.pdf to all parties to respect the neutrality of its ambulances.
On other occasions, UNRWA buildings have been caught in battles between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants resulting in the deaths of several employees.
In November 2002 Iain Hook, a British employee of UNRWA, was shot and killed by an Israeli military sniper
while working in the Jenin
refugee camp
, during an operation to locate a Palestinian militant suspected of masterminding a suicide bombing which had killed 14 people earlier in 2002. Peter Hansen
, the head of UNRWA at the time criticized the killing: "Israeli snipers had sights. They would have known who the two internationals (non-Palestinians) were. They did not dress like Palestinians."
shelled an UNRWA school in Jabalya, Gaza
, killing more than forty people. The IDF initially claimed it was responding to an attack by Hamas gunman hiding in the compound, but upon reexamination, said that an "errant shell had hit the school." This accusation caused harsh criticism of Israel from all over the world. In a clarified report, a United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs official stated: "The shelling, and all of the fatalities, took place outside rather than inside the school."
IDF officials have disputed the accuracy of the UN fatality assessment: "It was not certain that the number of casualties reported by the UN, 43, was accurate and that Military Intelligence noticed Hamas attempts to cover up the identity of those killed in the strike."
s and video documenting what they initially claimed was a group of Palestinian militants load a rocket into UN-marked vehicle. Israel announced its intention to file a strong complaint against UNRWA and demand that Danish
diplomat Peter Hansen
, UNRWA's head, be removed from office.
Hansen responded that the footage was of UNRWA crew members carrying a stretcher
into the UN ambulance, stating "While the quality of the video clip is poor, its analysis shows beyond the shadow of a doubt that the object carried and thrown into the vehicle is not / cannot be a Qassam rocket
". Moreover, Hansen accused Israel of making "baseless accusations" which put UNRWA's ambulance crews in "grave danger".
The Israeli authorities initially dismissed UNRWA's reaction, blaming Hansen for being "anti-Israeli".. Later on, however, Israeli General Yisrael Ziv recognized having doubts over whether the object was a rocket launcher or a stretcher. Eventually, the Israeli military changed some of its earlier statements and conceded the possibility that the object could have indeed been a stretcher, but did not offer the apology Hansen had demanded.
, UNRWA's former Commissioner-General (1996–2005) "consistently adopted a trenchant anti-Israel line" which resulted in biased and exaggerated reports against Israel.
Hansen caused controversy in Canada
in October 2004 when he said in an interview with CBC
TV:
Hansen later specified that he had been referring not to active Hamas members, but to Hamas sympathizers within UNRWA. In a letter to the Agency's major donors, he said he was attempting to be honest because UNRWA has over 8,200 employees in the Gaza Strip. Given the 30 to 40 percent support to Hamas in Gaza at the time, and UNRWA's workforce of 11,000 Palestinians, at least some Hamas sympathizers were likely to be among UNRWA's employees. The important thing, he wrote, was that UNRWA's strict rules and regulations ensured that its staff remained impartial UN servants. But he was retired from United Nations service on March 31, 2005.
announced that it was redirecting aid previously earmarked to UNRWA "to specific projects in the Palestinian Authority that will ensure accountability and foster democracy in the PA." Victor Toews
, the president of Canada's Treasury Board, stated, "Overall, Canada is not reducing the amount of money given to the PA, but it is now being redirected in accordance with Canadian values. This "will ensure accountability and foster democracy in the PA." Previously, Canada provided UNRWA with 11 percent of its budget at $10 million (Canadian) annually. The decision came despite positive internal evaluations of the Agency by CIDA officials. The Canadian decision put it very much at odds with the US and EU, which maintained or increased their levels of funding. Some suggested that the decision also cost Canada international support in its failed October 2010 effort to obtain a seat on the UN Security Council.
Documents obtained from the Canadian International Development Agency revealed that even the government of Israel opposed the Canadian move, and had asked Ottawa to resume contributions to UNRWA's General Fund.
A few days later, the UN resumed aid after the missing supplies had been returned.
On 5 August 2009, the IDF accused Hamas of stealing three ambulances that had just been transferred through Israel to the UNRWA. The UNRWA spokesmand denied the claim. A week later, Hamas confirmed it confiscated the ambulances due to bureaucratic reasons. A UNRWA spokesman also confirmed this but soon retracted this admission and denied the incident, even publicizing a photo it claimed was of one its officials with the ambulances.
On 23 May 2010, a group of 30 armed masked men set fire to the construction site of an UNRWA summer camp in Gaza City, destroying it. The arsonists left a letter addressed to UNRWA head John Ging, threatening his life. Four bullets were attached to the letter. Hamas condemned the arson but tried to minimize its importance. Additionally, Hamas advised UNRWA to reexamine its curriculum to ensure its suitability for Palestinian society, due to the mixing of genders at the camps. The previous year Hamas denounced UNRWA and Ging, accusing them of using their summer camps to corrupt the morals of Palestinian youth. Hamas has its own network of summer camps and the two organizations are regarded to be vying for influence with Gazan youth. In September 2011 it was reported that, under pressure from Hamas, UNRWA has made all its summer camps single-sex. At the same time it was reported that UNRWA has suspended the introduction of Holocaust studies in its schools.
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, as well as in the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
and the Gaza Strip
Gaza Strip
thumb|Gaza city skylineThe Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres wide, with a total area of...
. It is the only agency dedicated to helping refugees from a specific region or conflict. It is separate from UNHCR
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , also known as The UN Refugee Agency is a United Nations agency mandated to protect and support refugees at the request of a government or the UN itself and assists in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to...
, the UN Refugee Agency, which is the only other UN agency aiding refugees, dedicated to aiding all refugees in the world.
It was established following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
1948 Arab-Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
by the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
General Assembly under Resolution 302(IV) of 8 December 1949. This resolution also reaffirmed paragraph 11, concerning refugees, of UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which was adopted some 12 months earlier and was passed unopposed, supported by Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and the Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
states, with only the Soviet bloc and South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
abstaining.
UNRWA has had to develop a working definition of "refugee
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
" to allow it to provide humanitarian assistance. Its definition does not cover final status. Its operational definition of Palestine refugee for persons qualifying for UNRWA assistance says "whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948, and 1967 conflicts," This maintained that beneficiaries had to have lived in the British Mandate of Palestine for at least two years before fleeing and must have lost both their home and livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, or be the descendant of someone who had. Most of UNRWA's funding comes from European countries and the United States.
The UNRWA definition is meant solely to determine eligibility for UNRWA assistance. However, some argue it serves to perpetuate the conflict. Under General Assembly Resolution 194 (III
UN General Assembly Resolution 194
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 was passed on December 11, 1948, near the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The resolution expresses appreciation for the efforts of UN Envoy Folke Bernadotte after his assassination by members of the Zionist ultra-nationalist Lehi , headed by Yitzhak...
), of 11 December 1948, other persons may be eligible for repatriation
Repatriation
Repatriation is the process of returning a person back to one's place of origin or citizenship. This includes the process of returning refugees or soldiers to their place of origin following a war...
and/or compensation but are not necessarily eligible for relief under the UNRWA's working definition. Thus a person who is not or who has ceased to qualify for the benefits afforded by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, may still qualify for assistance as a refugee by the UNRWA definition.
All Palestine refugees (as defined) who are registered with UNRWA and are in need of assistance are eligible for help from UNRWA. In 2010, there were almost 5 million qualified Palestine refugees registered with the UNRWA. UNRWA provides facilities in 59 recognized refugee camp
Refugee camp
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees. Hundreds of thousands of people may live in any one single camp. Usually they are built and run by a government, the United Nations, or international organizations, or NGOs.Refugee camps are generally set up in an impromptu...
s in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It also provided relief to displaced persons inside the state of Israel following the 1948 conflict until the Israeli government took over responsibility for them in 1952.
For a camp to be recognized by UNRWA, there must be an agreement between the host government and UNRWA governing use of the camp. UNRWA does not itself run any camps, has no police powers or administrative role, but simply provides services to the camp. Refugee camp
Refugee camp
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees. Hundreds of thousands of people may live in any one single camp. Usually they are built and run by a government, the United Nations, or international organizations, or NGOs.Refugee camps are generally set up in an impromptu...
s, which developed from tent cities to rows of concrete blockhouses to urban ghettos indistinguishable from their surroundings, house around one third of all registered Palestine refugees. UNRWA also provides facilities in other areas where large numbers of registered Palestine refugees live outside of recognized camps.
Organisation and funding
UNRWA is a subsidiary organ of the United Nations General Assembly and its mandate is renewed every three years. It is the largest agency of the United Nations, employing over 25,000 staff, 99% of which are locally-recruited Palestinians. The Agency's headquarters are divided between the Gaza Strip and AmmanAmman
Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
, Jordan. Its operations are organised into five fields - Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, West Bank and Gaza. UNRWA's Commissioner-General is Filippo Grandi
Filippo Grandi
Filippo Grandi served as Deputy Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East , appointed to his position by United Nations Secretary-General in 2005...
, an Italian citizen, who succeeded Karen Koning AbuZayd
Karen Koning AbuZayd
Karen Koning AbuZayd has been a Commissioner-General for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East from June 28, 2005 to January 20, 2010 appointed by Kofi Annan. She was succeeded by her deputy Filippo Grandi....
, a US citizen, in 2010. Grandi is responsible for managing UNRWA's overall activities. His subordinate in charge of distributing humanitarian aid and overseeing general UNRWA operations in Gaza is John Ging
John Ging
John Ging is an Irish national and former officer in the Irish Army who has served as head of the United Nation's Relief and Works Agency in the Gaza Strip since 2006...
.
In 2009, UNRWA’s total budget was US$1.2 billion, for which the agency received US$948 million. In 2010, the biggest donors for its regular budget were the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
with $248 million and $165 million respectively. Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
($47m), the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
($45m), Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
($40m) and the Netherlands ($29m) are also important donors. In addition to its regular budget, UNRWA receives funding for emergency activities and special projects.
Operations
Services provided by UNRWA include health care, education, relief and social services and micro-credit loan programmes.Education programme
UNRWA operates one of the largest school systems in the Middle EastMiddle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, with 663 schools employing more than 17,000 teaching and support staff. It has been the main provider of basic education to Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
refugee children since 1950. The education programme is UNRWA's largest area of activity, accounting for half of its regular budget and 70 per cent of its staff. Basic education is available to all registered refugee children free of charge up to around the age of 15. By 2004 there were close to 500,000 students enrolled in 663 schools. UNRWA schools follow the curriculum of their host countries. This allows UNRWA pupils to progress to further education or employment holding locally-recognised qualifications and fits with the sovereignty requirements of countries hosting refugees.
In the 1960s UNRWA schools became the first in the region to achieve full gender equality. Overcrowded classrooms containing 40 or even 50 pupils are common. Almost all of UNRWA's schools operate on a double shift - where two separate groups of pupils and teachers share the same buildings. Not all refugee children attend UNRWA schools. In Jordan and Syria children have full access to government schools and many attend those because they are close to where they live. UNRWA also operates eight vocational and technical training centres and three teacher training colleges that have places for around 6,200 students.
Relief and social services programme
In Palestinian refugee society, families without a male bread winner are often very vulnerable. Those headed by a widow, a divorcee or a disabled father often live in dire poverty. UNRWA provides food aid, cash assistance and help with shelter repairs to these families. Fewer than six percent of refugees qualify as hardship cases, with the largest number being in Lebanon where restrictions on Palestinians entering the Lebanese job market cause severe hardship. Children from special hardship case families are given preferential access to the Agency's vocational training centres, while women in such families are encouraged to join UNRWA's women's programme centres. In these centres, training, advice and childcare are available to encourage female refugees’ social development.Rations are distributed to families in UNRWA's special hardship category every quarter. The yearly value of the food is just over US$ 100 per person and most of it is received by the agency in the form of in-kind donations of basic foodstuff, such as flour, rice and dried milk. Finances permitting, the Agency also provides small cash grants to very poor refugee families to help with the purchase of items such as school uniforms and school books or as crisis grants, for example if they lose all their possessions in a house fire.
Most of the concrete-block shelters in the refugee camps were built by UNRWA in the 1950s to replace the tents in which refugees had lived since the 1948 war. Others were built after the 1967 conflict. Although most refugees have been able to make improvements and additions to their shelters over the years, the very poorest refugees often live in shelters that are now in extremely bad condition. Wet, crumbling walls, leaking zinc roofs and rodent infestation cause additional social and health problems. UNRWA has been able to repair hundreds of shelters in recent years, often simply by supplying materials while the families provide their own labour. UNRWA is unable to keep up with the growing numbers of special hardship case families who each year join its waiting list for shelter rehabilitation.
UNRWA created community-based organizations (CBOs) to target women, refugees with disabilities and to look after the needs of children. The CBOs now have their own management committees staffed by volunteers from the community. UNRWA provides them with technical and small amounts of targeted financial assistance, but many have made links of their own with local and international NGOs.
Health programme
Since 1950, UNRWA has been the main healthcare provider for the Palestinian refugee population. Basic health needs are met through a network of primary care clinics, providing access to secondary treatment in hospitals, food aid to vulnerable groups and environmental health in refugee camps.The health of Palestine refugees resembles that of many populations in transition from developing world to developed world status. Immunisation programmes have vaccine
Vaccine
A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins...
-preventable diseases under control, but there remains a high prevalence of diseases caused by cramped housing and open sewers in the camps and high poverty levels. At the same time, non-communicable diseases such as hypertension
Hypertension
Hypertension or high blood pressure is a cardiac chronic medical condition in which the systemic arterial blood pressure is elevated. What that means is that the heart is having to work harder than it should to pump the blood around the body. Blood pressure involves two measurements, systolic and...
and diabetes are on the increase. Birth rates are among the highest in the world, with short intervals between pregnancies. Diarrhea
Diarrhea
Diarrhea , also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having three or more loose or liquid bowel movements per day. It is a common cause of death in developing countries and the second most common cause of infant deaths worldwide. The loss of fluids through diarrhea can cause dehydration and...
and intestinal parasite
Intestinal parasite
Intestinal parasites are parasites that populate the gastro-intestinal tract in humans and other animals. They can live throughout the body, but most prefer the intestinal wall. Means of exposure include: ingestion of undercooked meat, drinking infected water, and skin absorption...
s are particularly common among children because of poor environmental health for the one third of refugees who live in camps. However, infant mortality rates are lower among refugees than the World Health Organisation's benchmark for the developing world. In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Al-Aqsa Intifada
Al-Aqsa Intifada
The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada and the Oslo War, was the second Palestinian uprising, a period of intensified Palestinian-Israeli violence, which began in late September 2000...
has led to curfews and closures which have caused a growth in malnutrition, especially among children and nursing mothers. The economic hardships in the territory have driven many refugees away from private health care, increasing the number of patient visits to UNRWA doctors in the Gaza Strip by 61 per cent during the first two years of the conflict.
UNRWA's network of 122 clinics provides free primary healthcare to all registered refugees who ask for it. The clinics are based inside refugee camps or near concentrations of refugees. In 2003 the clinics handled 10 million patient visits - averaging more than 110 visits per doctor per day. Medical services include outpatient care, dental treatment and rehabilitation for the physically disabled. Maternal and child healthcare (MCH) is a priority for UNRWA's health programme. School health teams and camp medical officers visit UNRWA schools to examine new pupils to aid early detection of childhood diseases. All UNRWA clinics offer family planning services with counselling that emphasises the importance of birth spacing as a factor in maternal and child health. Agency clinics also supervise the provision of food aid to nursing and pregnant mothers who need it and six clinics in the Gaza Strip have their own maternity units.
UNRWA provides refugees with assistance in meeting the costs of hospitalisation either by partially reimbursing them, or by negotiating contracts with government, NGO and private hospitals.
The 1.3 million refugees who still live in refugee camps - one third of the total – receive environmental health services from UNRWA. These include such essentials as sewage disposal, the provision of safe drinking water and disposal of refuse. Large scale projects have been carried out in camps since 1989, but many still have inadequate infrastructure, including open sewers. A great many refugee shelters suffer flooding by waste water in winter.
UNRWA Microfinance Department
UNRWA's MicrofinanceMicrofinance
Microfinance is the provision of financial services to low-income clients or solidarity lending groups including consumers and the self-employed, who traditionally lack access to banking and related services....
Department (MD) aims to alleviate poverty and support economic development in the refugee community by providing capital investment and working capital
Working capital
Working capital is a financial metric which represents operating liquidity available to a business, organization or other entity, including governmental entity. Along with fixed assets such as plant and equipment, working capital is considered a part of operating capital. Net working capital is...
loans at commercial rates. The programme seeks to be as close to self-supporting as possible. It has a strong record of creating employment, generating income and empowering refugees.
The Microfinance Department is an autonomous financial unit within UNRWA, established in 1991 to provide microfinance services to Palestine refugees, as well as poor or marginal groups living and working in close proximity to them. With operations in three countries, the MD currently has the broadest regional coverage of any microfinance institution in the Middle East. Having begun its operations in the oPt, it remains the largest non-bank financial intermediary in the West Bank and Gaza. As of March 2010, it has extended over 202,100 loans across its areas of operation, valued at USD 224.29 million.
Mission:
The MD works by extending micro-credit and complimentary services to small entrepreneurs, households and businesses. This lending is guided in part by economic objectives: to sustain and create jobs, reduce poverty and boost economic security. However, its aim is also to support human development more broadly, by sustaining household consumption and family investments in education and health. Fundamentally, all lending seeks to empower the MD’s clients, and in this respect particularly targets women and youth, as well as other economically and socially vulnerable groups, who face particular challenges in obtaining affordable credit.
The MD conceives of its mission in the context of the United Nation’s broader vision of building inclusive financial services for the poor. Many of its clients manage small, often informal businesses on the margins of the economy. The vast majority are unable to secure affordable credit from commercial banks. Yet if provided with such loans they do have the ability to repay them, while generating sustainable incomes for themselves, as well as their families and employees, many of whom are drawn from the poorest segments of society. The MD’s work is to help close this circle of opportunity.
Outreach:
As of March 2009, the MD has invested USD 174.36 million in the Palestinian economy through 146,600 loans. In order to assist Palestine refugees across the wider Middle East region, the department has since 2003 also maintained operations in Jordan and Syria ─ currently home to 2.46 million Palestine refugees. In the intervening six years it has grown into the second largest microfinance provider in Syria, where it is also the first institution to reach operational self-sufficiency, and the fifth largest in Jordan. In total it has disbursed over 55,400 loans in these markets, for a cumulative investment of USD 54.51 million.
The department focuses its outreach on poor urban areas, which are both centres of commercial and industrial activity and host a high concentration of Palestine refugees. As of March 2010 it maintains 17 branches around the region, employing 310 staff. Seven branches are in the West Bank, three in Gaza, four in Jordan, and three in Syria. Operations in each country, as well as the West Bank and Gaza, are overseen by a field office, each of which is in turn supervised and provided with support services by the MD’s headquarters in Jerusalem.
Products and Services:
Through its branch offices the MD provides a range of credit products. Existing products available in the MD’s markets include the following:
- Microenterprise Credit (MEC): targets the overwhelming majority of regional businesses which employ fewer than five workers, most of whom enjoy no access to formal credit and are vulnerable to shocks. The loans range from USD 300 to USD 8,500, and are designed to help such businesses build-up and maintain reserves of short-term working capital.
- Microenterprise Credit Plus (MEC+): allows mature microenterprises who seek to expand capital and grow employment to expand MEC borrowing with more extended repayment horizons. Eligible clients include formal enterprises and borrowers who have demonstrated repayment ability over several loan cycles.
- Solidarity Group Lending (SGL): designed for groups of women entrepreneurs who are collectively and individually responsible for repayment. Starting at USD 400, with a maximum ceiling of USD 5,000, the SGL sustains microenterprise, as well household expenditures on education, health, and basic needs.
- Women’s Household Credit (WHC): an adaptation of the SGL loan, first piloted in Syria to accommodate home-based enterprise by women, allowing them to build up household assets used for business. Unlike the SLG product, it does not work on a group-lending model. Average disbursements are in the range USD 150 to USD 800.
- Consumer Loan Product (CLP): supports low-income and working-class family consumption, regular investments in education and health, as well as emergency outlays.
- Housing Loan Product (HLP): helps poor families with no access to mortgage facilities improve, expand or acquire housing.
- Small-Scale Enterprise Lending (SSE): finances the long-term capital needs of a range of small-to large-scale formal enterprises
- Small and Medium Enterprise Business Training (SMET): an enterprise training program in Gaza that trains participants in subjects such as book-keeping, taxation, tendering, computing and e-commerce.
Emergency operations
Since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, UNRWA has been working to alleviate the impact of resulting curfews and closures on the refugee population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.The effect of closures on the Palestinian economy
Palestinian economy
The economy of the Palestinian territories refers to the economy of the territories under the administration of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.- History :...
has caused thousands to lose their livelihoods. It is estimated that more than 50 per cent of the population is out of work -putting over 60 per cent of the population under the poverty line with an income of below US$2 a day. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that close to two million Palestinians, 62 per cent of the population, are considered "vulnerable" because they have inadequate access to food, shelter or health services. The United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Agency for International Development (USAID) reported a sharp growth in malnutrition
Malnutrition
Malnutrition is the condition that results from taking an unbalanced diet in which certain nutrients are lacking, in excess , or in the wrong proportions....
and anemia
Anemia
Anemia is a decrease in number of red blood cells or less than the normal quantity of hemoglobin in the blood. However, it can include decreased oxygen-binding ability of each hemoglobin molecule due to deformity or lack in numerical development as in some other types of hemoglobin...
among Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
children - marked by stunted growth or low body weights.http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/docrep/006/j1575e/j1575e00.htm
As part of its emergency relief activities, UNRWA provides temporary jobs for unemployed breadwinners - a programme that has allowed the Agency to indirectly support 160,000 women and children in Gaza alone. UNRWA has also increased its provision of food aid. Before the conflict UNRWA distributed food to around 20,000 refugee families, it now targets 230,000 families across the West Bank and Gaza. UNRWA food parcels typically contain 50 kilograms of flour, five kilograms of rice, five kilograms of sugar, two liters of cooking oil, one kilogram of powdered milk and five kilograms of lentils.
The Agency assists the almost 30,000 refugees whose homes have been destroyed during military operations. UNRWA has provided tents, blankets, kitchen kits, medicines and drinking water, as well as cash assistance to help with renting a new home to those families made homeless. The Agency is also rebuilding and repairing shelters. The focus of the Agency's rebuilding work has been Rafah
Rafah
Rafah , also known as Rafiah, is a Palestinian city in the southern Gaza Strip. Located south of Gaza, Rafah's population of 71,003 is overwhelmingly made up of Palestinian refugees. Rafah camp and Tall as-Sultan form separate localities. Rafah is the district capital of the Rafah Governorate...
and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip and in Jenin
Jenin
Jenin is the largest town in the Northern West Bank, and the third largest city overall. It serves as the administrative center of the Jenin Governorate and is a major agricultural center for the surrounding towns. In 2007, the city had a population of 120,004 not including the adjacent refugee...
camp in the West Bank. In Jenin
Jenin
Jenin is the largest town in the Northern West Bank, and the third largest city overall. It serves as the administrative center of the Jenin Governorate and is a major agricultural center for the surrounding towns. In 2007, the city had a population of 120,004 not including the adjacent refugee...
a donation of US$27 million from the United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...
Red Crescent Society allowed UNRWA to rebuild the homes, infrastructure and communal facilities of the camp that were destroyed by the fighting in April 2002.
UNRWA's health programme faces increased demands in the territories because of the injuries, stress and psychological trauma caused by the conflict. The economic impact of closures is also increasing the demands made on the Agency as refugees seek care from the Agency rather than from private providers. UNRWA ambulances and mobile medical teams bring healthcare to communities isolated by closures for long periods.
The crisis has had a particularly marked effect on the refugee children served by UNRWA's schools. Teachers and pupils are often unable to reach their schools and thousands of teaching days have been lost. Schools have come under fire on many occasions and have been used as military outposts and detention centres. The violent events witnessed by the children have caused emotional and psychological trauma and many have suffered the loss of classmates or family members. Examination pass rates have collapsed because of the conflict and UNRWA is running remedial classes in each school to try to compensate for the time lost to education. The Agency has also hired teams of trauma counsellors to work with those children who have been emotionally scarred by their experiences.
To fund its emergency activities in the West Bank and Gaza UNRWA has launched a series of appeals for funds. The first of these was a flash appeal in October 2000 for US$4.83 million.
In November 2004 UNRWA launched an appeal for US$186 million to cover emergency operations during 2005.
UNRWA and the Palestinian curriculum
In 1998, two years before the Al-Aqsa intifada, US Congressman Peter DeutschPeter Deutsch
Peter R. Deutsch is an American politician from the U.S. state of Florida. Deutsch was a Democratic Representative from Florida's 20th congressional district from 1993 until 2005.- Background :...
(D-FL) and other Congressmembers pressured the State Department to ask UNRWA to investigate evidence that Palestinian Authority school books used in UNRWA-run schools contained anti-Semitic
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
statements. The allegations surfaced in reports compiled by the Centre for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, an Israeli-American NGO.
For historical reasons UNRWA schools followed the Jordanian curriculum in the West Bank and the Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian curriculum in the Gaza Strip
Gaza Strip
thumb|Gaza city skylineThe Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres wide, with a total area of...
and this practice continued under the Israeli control of those areas between 1967 and 1994. Since 1994 the Palestinian Authority has progressively been replacing the old Jordanian and Egyptian textbooks as new PA-produced textbooks become available. The last of the older books was phased out of UNRWA schools in the autumn of 2004.
In 1999 and 2000, Nathan Brown, Professor of Political Science at George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
, published a study on this subject. Regarding the Palestinian Authority's new textbooks, he states: "The new books have removed the anti-Semitism present in the older books while they tell history from a Palestinian point of view, they do not seek to erase Israel, delegitimize it or replace it with the "State of Palestine"; each book contains a foreword describing the West Bank and Gaza as "the two parts of the homeland"; the maps show some awkwardness but do sometimes indicate the 1967 line and take some other measures to avoid indicating borders; in this respect they are actually more forthcoming than Israeli maps; the books avoid treating Israel at length but do indeed mention it by name; the new books must be seen as a tremendous improvement from a Jewish, Israeli, and humanitarian view; they do not compare unfavorably to the material my son was given as a fourth grade student in a school in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
". Brown also described the research into Palestinian textbooks conducted by the Centre for Monitoring the Impact of Peace as "tendentious and highly misleading". However, in an exchange with CMIP Brown notes "my criticism that CMIP's work is 'tendentious and highly misleading' was made before CMIP issued its 2001 report and could hardly have referred specifically to it."
In 2002, the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
requested the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
to commission a reputable NGO to conduct a review of the new Palestinian curriculum. The Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI) was thereby commissioned by the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
and the US Consul General in Jerusalem to review the Palestinian Authority's textbooks. Its report was completed in March 2003 and delivered to the State Department for submission to Congress. Its executive summary states: "The overall orientation of the curriculum is peaceful despite the harsh and violent realities on the ground. It does not openly incite against Israel and the Jews. It does not openly incite hatred and violence. Religious and political tolerance is emphasized in a good number of textbooks and in multiple contexts." Its June 2004 follow-up report notes that "except for calls for resisting occupation and oppression, no signs were detected of outright promotion of hatred towards Israel, Judaism, or Zionism" and that "tolerance, as a concept, runs across the new textbooks". The report also stated that "textbooks revealed numerous instances that introduce and promote the universal and religious values and concepts of respect of other cultures, religions, and ethnic groups, peace, human rights, freedom of speech, justice, compassion, diversity, plurality, tolerance, respect of law, and environmental awareness". However, the IPCRI noted a number of deficiencies in the curriculum, stating "The practice of 'appropriating' sites, areas, localities, geographic regions, etc. inside the territory of the State of Israel as Palestine/Palestinian observed in our previous review, remains a feature of the newly published textbooks (4th and 9th Grade) laying substantive grounds to the contention that the Palestinian Authority did not in fact recognize Israel as the State of the Jewish people. [...] A good number [of maps ...] show Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as one geographic entity (without demarcation lines or differentiated colorings). Historically Palestinian cities (e.g., Akka
Akka
Akka is traditionally a female spirit in Sámi and Finnish mythology.In Sámi mythology, the first akka was Maderakka and her daughters were Sarakka, Uksakka and Juksakka. Some Sámi thought they lived under their kota tents....
, Yafa
Yafa
Yafa is a state in southern Yemen. Situated northeast of the city of Aden, it is composed of Upper Yafa and Lower Yafa....
, Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
, Safad, al-Lid, Ar-Ramla, Beer As-sabe’) are included in some maps that lump together the areas controlled by the PA with those inside the State of Israel. No map of the region bears the name of 'Israel' in it the pre-1967 Armistice Demarcation Lines. In addition, Israeli towns with a predominantly Jewish population are not represented on these maps." The Summary also states that the curriculum asserts a historical Arab presence in the region, while "The Jewish connection to the region, in general, and the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
, in particular, is virtually missing. This lack of reference is perceived as tantamount to a denial of such a connection, although no direct evidence is found for such a denial." It also notes that "terms and passages used to describe some historical events are sometimes offensive in nature and could be construed as reflecting hatred of and discrimination against Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
and Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
."
Criticism
From Israel and pro-Israel groups there has been extensive criticism of the statistics, data collection techniques, and definitions concerning Palestinian refugees by the UNRWA. It has been accused of hiring known militants, perpetuating Palestinian dependency, demonizing Israel, and funneling money from Western governments to line the pockets of the Palestinian Authority and purchasing arms for terrorists.In 2003, Israel released to newspapers what the New York Times called a "damning intelligence report". Citing interrogations of suspected militants, the document claims that UNRWA operations being used as cover for Palestinian terrorists, including smuggling arms in UN ambulances and hosting meetings of Tanzim
Tanzim
Tanzim is a militant faction of the Palestinian Fatah movement.-Overview:The Tanzim militia, founded in 1995 to counter Palestinian Islamism, is widely considered to be an armed offshoot of Fatah with its own leadership structure...
in UN buildings.
In 2006, the UNRWA drew criticism from the US Congressmen Mark Kirk
Mark Kirk
Mark Steven Kirk is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and a member of the Republican Party. Previously, Kirk was a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Illinois's 10th congressional district....
and Steven Rothman. Their letter, sent to the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
, stated in part: "After an exhaustive review of the UN's own audit, it is clear UNRWA is wrought by mismanagement, ineffective policies, and failure to secure its finances. We must upgrade UNRWA's financial controls, management and enforcement of US law that bars any taxpayer dollars from supporting terrorists." UNRWA responded by showing the results of its school students in Syria and Jordan, who outperform their peers in host-government schools. UNRWA also mentioned the difficult conditions in which it operates: its refugee load increased much faster than its budget, while the tightening of the closure regime since the Second Intifada deeply affected the humanitarian situation in the former Israeli-occupied territories
Israeli-occupied territories
The Israeli-occupied territories are the territories which have been designated as occupied territory by the United Nations and other international organizations, governments and others to refer to the territory seized by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967 from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria...
.
It has been claimed by some that UNRWA is an example of a United Nations anti-Israel bias, and that the Palestine refugees should be treated equally to all others with refugee status around the world. Defenders of the UNRWA put forward the specific legal status of the Palestinians in 1948 who, because they were living under the British Mandate of Palestine, were stateless and therefore not eligible benefits under the common definition.
Critics of UNRWA say that the present definition give Palestine refugees a favored status when compared with other refugee groups, which the UNHCR defines in terms of nationality
Nationality
Nationality is membership of a nation or sovereign state, usually determined by their citizenship, but sometimes by ethnicity or place of residence, or based on their sense of national identity....
as opposed to a relatively short number of years of residency.
Critics of Israel say it should allow the refugees to return, which some say is stipulated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 302 which Israel supported, which would make UNRWA redundant.
Defenders of UNRWA respond that it is precisely the stateless status of the Palestinians under British mandate in 1948 that made it necessary to create a definition of refugee based on criteria other than nationality. Historians, such as Martha Gellhorn
Martha Gellhorn
Martha Gellhorn was an American novelist, travel writer and journalist, considered by The London Daily Telegraph amongst others to be one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century. She reported on virtually every major world conflict that took place during her 60-year career...
and Dr. Walter Pinner, have also blamed UNRWA for distortion of statistics and even of sheer fraud. Pinner wrote in 1959 that the actual number of refugees then was only 367,000.
Although UNRWA's Mandate is only Relief and Works, the Wall Street Journal Europe edition, published an op-ed
Op-ed
An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page , is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board...
by Asaf Romirowsky
Asaf Romirowsky
Asaf Romirowsky is a scholar of Middle Eastern studies and a fellow at the Middle East Forum. Romirowsky, an Israeli, did his military service for the Israel Defense Forces as an international relations liaison officer in the West Bank. He currently serves in the IDF reserves as an liaison...
and Alexander H. Joffe
Alexander H. Joffe
-Biography:Dr. Joffe graduated from Cornell University with a B.A in History and received an M.A. and Ph.D. in Near Eastern archaeology from the University of Arizona.-Academic career:...
in April 2011 saying that despite UNRWA's "purported goal, it is hard to claim that the UNRWA has created any Palestinian institutions that foster a genuinely civil society. Ideally the UNRWA would be disbanded and Palestinians given the freedom - and the responsibility - to build their own society."
James G. Lindsay
James G. Lindsay, a former UNRWA general-counsel and fellow researcher for Washington Institute for Near East PolicyWashington Institute for Near East Policy
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy is a think tank based in Washington, D.C. focused on United States foreign policy in the Middle East. It was established by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 1985...
has published a report for WINEP in which he criticized UNRWA practices. Lindsay claimed that UNRWA is not ousting terrorists from its ranks:
UNRWA has taken very few steps to detect and eliminate terrorists from the ranks of its staff or its beneficiaries, and no steps at all to prevent members of organizations such as Hamas from joining its staff. UNRWA has no preemployment security checks and does not monitor off-time behavior to ensure compliance with the organization's anti-terrorist rules. No justification exists for millions of dollars in humanitarian aid going to those who can afford to pay for UNRWA services.
Lindsay also stated that UNRWA’s failure to match UNHCR’s success in resettling refugees "obviously represents a political decision on the part of the agency" and "seems to favor the strain of Palestinian political thought espoused by those who are intent on a 'return' to the land that is now Israel". He argued that UNRWA’s education system is highly problematic. Lindsay quoted a number of American researches that defined UNRWA's schools' curriculum as "highly nationalistic" and "not a 'peace curriculum'" and stated that the textbooks fail "to identify Israel on maps", and that they avoid "discussing Jews or Israelis as individuals (which critics argue would
make them more “human” to the reader)"
In his report he also offered suggestions for improvement:
UNRWA should make the following operational changes: halt its one-sided political statements and limit itself to comments on humanitarian issues; take additional steps to ensure the agency is not employing or providing benefits to terrorists and criminals; and allow the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), or some other neutral entity, to provide balanced and discrimination-free textbooks for UNRWA schools.
Response to Lindsay's report
Andrew Whitley, director of the UNRWA representative office at UN headquarters in New York, said:"The agency is disappointed by the findings of the study, found it to be tendentious and partial, and regrets in particular the narrow range of sources used".
UNRWA's Jerusalem spokesman Chris Gunness stated that UNRWA rejects Lindsay's report and its findings
and claimed that the study was inaccurate and misleading, since it "makes selective use of source material and fails to paint a truthful portrait of UNRWA and its operations today".
John Ging
John Ging
John Ging is an Irish national and former officer in the Irish Army who has served as head of the United Nation's Relief and Works Agency in the Gaza Strip since 2006...
, head of UNRWA Gaza, stated in regards with Lindsay's criticism on UNRWA failure to resettle refugees that he was disappointed to find this issue in Lindsay’s report. Ging argued that Lindsay had "no basis to say that it is UNRWA’s decision because our mandate is given to us. I agree that it is a political failure, but we don’t set up the mandate, we are only the implementers".
Regarding the report portion about UNRWA's schools, Ging said: "As for our schools, we use textbooks of the Palestinian Authority. Are they perfect? No, they’re not. I can’t defend the indefensible."
Praise
UNRWA received public expressions of praise and appreciation by the Nobel Peace Laureates Mairéad Corrigan Maguire and Kofi AnnanKofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
, by the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon
Ban Ki-moon
Ban Ki-moon is the eighth and current Secretary-General of the United Nations, after succeeding Kofi Annan in 2007. Before going on to be Secretary-General, Ban was a career diplomat in South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the United Nations. He entered diplomatic service the year he...
http://reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/EGUA-7EDQJA?OpenDocument&query=unrwa, and by representatives from the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
, the United States, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
, Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
, Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
, and Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, among others. In 2007, the Permanent Representative of Norway to the United Nations described his country as a "strong supporter" of UNRWA, which acts as "a safety net" for the Palestine refugees, providing them with "immediate relief, basic services and the possibility of a life in dignity." The same day, the Representative of Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
praised the fact that
"despite times of exceptional hardship and suffering in the region, UNRWA has been able to deliver substantial results. On the humanitarian front, UNRWA played a central role in easing the suffering of both refugees and Lebanese civilians during its emergency operations in Lebanon and on the Gaza Strip. Under often life-threatening conditions, UNRWA's staff showed relentless dedication to the Agency's responsibilities."
Gershon Kedar, Israel's delegate to the fourth committee, confirmed Israel's support for the UNRWA: "My delegation wishes to inform the Committee that despite our concerns regarding the politicization of UNRWA, Israel supports its humanitarian mission, and will continue to work in a spirit of dialogue and cooperation with the agency under the leadership of its Commissioner-General, Karen Honing AbuZayd."
Relations with Israel
After Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza in the June 1967 Six-Day WarSix-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
, Israel requested that the UNRWA continue its operations there, and agreed to facilitate them. In the years since, relations between Israel and UNRWA have found themselves subject to the varying intensities of conflict that have continued to rock the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. During the Al-Aqsa Intifada
Al-Aqsa Intifada
The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada and the Oslo War, was the second Palestinian uprising, a period of intensified Palestinian-Israeli violence, which began in late September 2000...
, which started in late 2000, UNRWA often complained that Israeli road closures, curfew
Curfew
A curfew is an order specifying a time after which certain regulations apply. Examples:# An order by a government for certain persons to return home daily before a certain time...
s and checkpoint
Border checkpoint
A border checkpoint is a place, generally between two countries, where travellers and/or goods are inspected. Authorization often is required to enter a country through its borders. Access-controlled borders often have a limited number of checkpoints where they can be crossed without legal...
s in the West Bank and Gaza have interfered with its ability to carry out its humanitarian mandate. The Agency has also complained that large scale house demolition
House demolition
House demolition is primarily a military tactic which has been used in many conflicts for a variety of purposes. It has been employed as a scorched earth tactic to deprive an advancing enemy of food and shelter, or to wreck an enemy's economy and infrastructure. It has also been used for purposes...
s in the Gaza Strip have left over 30,000 people homeless. Israel justifies the demolitions as anti-terrorism measures.
Relations between UNRWA and Israel have often been strained. UNRWA has been under routine attack from the Israeli government and politicians for alleged involvement with Palestinian militant groups, such as Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
. For example, the Israel Defence Force released a video from May 2004, in which armed Palestinian militants carry an injured colleague into an UNRWA ambulance, before boarding with him. The ambulance driver requested that the armed men leave, but was threatened and told to drive to a hospital. UNRWA issued a plea http://www.un.org/unrwa/news/releases/pr-2004/hqg-0904.pdf to all parties to respect the neutrality of its ambulances.
On other occasions, UNRWA buildings have been caught in battles between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants resulting in the deaths of several employees.
In November 2002 Iain Hook, a British employee of UNRWA, was shot and killed by an Israeli military sniper
Sniper
A sniper is a marksman who shoots targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the capabilities of regular personnel. Snipers typically have specialized training and distinct high-precision rifles....
while working in the Jenin
Jenin
Jenin is the largest town in the Northern West Bank, and the third largest city overall. It serves as the administrative center of the Jenin Governorate and is a major agricultural center for the surrounding towns. In 2007, the city had a population of 120,004 not including the adjacent refugee...
refugee camp
Refugee camp
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees. Hundreds of thousands of people may live in any one single camp. Usually they are built and run by a government, the United Nations, or international organizations, or NGOs.Refugee camps are generally set up in an impromptu...
, during an operation to locate a Palestinian militant suspected of masterminding a suicide bombing which had killed 14 people earlier in 2002. Peter Hansen
Peter Hansen (UN)
Peter Hansen , a Danish national, was Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East from 1996-2005.-Academic career:...
, the head of UNRWA at the time criticized the killing: "Israeli snipers had sights. They would have known who the two internationals (non-Palestinians) were. They did not dress like Palestinians."
January 6, 2009 incident
On January 7, 2009, UNRWA officials alleged that the prior day, in the course of the Gaza War, the Israel Defense ForcesIsrael Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
shelled an UNRWA school in Jabalya, Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
, killing more than forty people. The IDF initially claimed it was responding to an attack by Hamas gunman hiding in the compound, but upon reexamination, said that an "errant shell had hit the school." This accusation caused harsh criticism of Israel from all over the world. In a clarified report, a United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs official stated: "The shelling, and all of the fatalities, took place outside rather than inside the school."
IDF officials have disputed the accuracy of the UN fatality assessment: "It was not certain that the number of casualties reported by the UN, 43, was accurate and that Military Intelligence noticed Hamas attempts to cover up the identity of those killed in the strike."
October 1, 2004 incident
On October 1, 2004, Israel again lodged accusations against UNRWA. The Israeli Defence Forces released unmanned aerial vehicleUnmanned aerial vehicle
An unmanned aerial vehicle , also known as a unmanned aircraft system , remotely piloted aircraft or unmanned aircraft, is a machine which functions either by the remote control of a navigator or pilot or autonomously, that is, as a self-directing entity...
s and video documenting what they initially claimed was a group of Palestinian militants load a rocket into UN-marked vehicle. Israel announced its intention to file a strong complaint against UNRWA and demand that Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
diplomat Peter Hansen
Peter Hansen (UN)
Peter Hansen , a Danish national, was Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East from 1996-2005.-Academic career:...
, UNRWA's head, be removed from office.
Hansen responded that the footage was of UNRWA crew members carrying a stretcher
Stretcher
A stretcher is a medical device used to carry casualties or an incapacitated person from one place to another. It is a simple type of litter, and still called by that name in some cases....
into the UN ambulance, stating "While the quality of the video clip is poor, its analysis shows beyond the shadow of a doubt that the object carried and thrown into the vehicle is not / cannot be a Qassam rocket
Qassam rocket
The Qassam rocket is a simple steel artillery rocket developed and deployed by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas. Three models have been produced and used between 2001 and 2011....
". Moreover, Hansen accused Israel of making "baseless accusations" which put UNRWA's ambulance crews in "grave danger".
The Israeli authorities initially dismissed UNRWA's reaction, blaming Hansen for being "anti-Israeli".. Later on, however, Israeli General Yisrael Ziv recognized having doubts over whether the object was a rocket launcher or a stretcher. Eventually, the Israeli military changed some of its earlier statements and conceded the possibility that the object could have indeed been a stretcher, but did not offer the apology Hansen had demanded.
Peter Hansen
Israel has stated that Peter HansenPeter Hansen (UN)
Peter Hansen , a Danish national, was Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East from 1996-2005.-Academic career:...
, UNRWA's former Commissioner-General (1996–2005) "consistently adopted a trenchant anti-Israel line" which resulted in biased and exaggerated reports against Israel.
Hansen caused controversy in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
in October 2004 when he said in an interview with CBC
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
TV:
Oh I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don't see that as a crime. Hamas as a political organization does not mean that every member is a militant and we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another.
We demand of our staff, whatever their political persuasion is, that they behave in accordance with UN standards and norms for neutrality.
Hansen later specified that he had been referring not to active Hamas members, but to Hamas sympathizers within UNRWA. In a letter to the Agency's major donors, he said he was attempting to be honest because UNRWA has over 8,200 employees in the Gaza Strip. Given the 30 to 40 percent support to Hamas in Gaza at the time, and UNRWA's workforce of 11,000 Palestinians, at least some Hamas sympathizers were likely to be among UNRWA's employees. The important thing, he wrote, was that UNRWA's strict rules and regulations ensured that its staff remained impartial UN servants. But he was retired from United Nations service on March 31, 2005.
Investigation by the United States Congress
The United States government financed a programme of "Operations Support Officers", part of whose job is to make random and unannounced inspections of UNRWA facilities to ensure their sanctity from militant operations. In 2004 the US Congress asked the General Accounting Office to investigate media claims that taxpayer's dollars given to UNRWA had been used to support individuals involved in militant activities. During its investigation, the GAO discovered several irregularities in its processing and employment history.Loss of Canadian support
In January 2010, the Government of CanadaGovernment of Canada
The Government of Canada, formally Her Majesty's Government, is the system whereby the federation of Canada is administered by a common authority; in Canadian English, the term can mean either the collective set of institutions or specifically the Queen-in-Council...
announced that it was redirecting aid previously earmarked to UNRWA "to specific projects in the Palestinian Authority that will ensure accountability and foster democracy in the PA." Victor Toews
Vic Toews
Victor "Vic" Toews, PC QC MP is a Canadian politician. He has represented Provencher in the Canadian House of Commons since 2000, and currently serves in the cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper as Minister of Public Safety. He previously served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from...
, the president of Canada's Treasury Board, stated, "Overall, Canada is not reducing the amount of money given to the PA, but it is now being redirected in accordance with Canadian values. This "will ensure accountability and foster democracy in the PA." Previously, Canada provided UNRWA with 11 percent of its budget at $10 million (Canadian) annually. The decision came despite positive internal evaluations of the Agency by CIDA officials. The Canadian decision put it very much at odds with the US and EU, which maintained or increased their levels of funding. Some suggested that the decision also cost Canada international support in its failed October 2010 effort to obtain a seat on the UN Security Council.
Documents obtained from the Canadian International Development Agency revealed that even the government of Israel opposed the Canadian move, and had asked Ottawa to resume contributions to UNRWA's General Fund.
Problems with Hamas
On 4 February 2009, UNRWA halted aid shipments into the Gaza Strip after it accused Hamas of breaking into a UN warehouse and stealing tonnes of blankets and food which had been earmarked for needy families.A few days later, the UN resumed aid after the missing supplies had been returned.
On 5 August 2009, the IDF accused Hamas of stealing three ambulances that had just been transferred through Israel to the UNRWA. The UNRWA spokesmand denied the claim. A week later, Hamas confirmed it confiscated the ambulances due to bureaucratic reasons. A UNRWA spokesman also confirmed this but soon retracted this admission and denied the incident, even publicizing a photo it claimed was of one its officials with the ambulances.
On 23 May 2010, a group of 30 armed masked men set fire to the construction site of an UNRWA summer camp in Gaza City, destroying it. The arsonists left a letter addressed to UNRWA head John Ging, threatening his life. Four bullets were attached to the letter. Hamas condemned the arson but tried to minimize its importance. Additionally, Hamas advised UNRWA to reexamine its curriculum to ensure its suitability for Palestinian society, due to the mixing of genders at the camps. The previous year Hamas denounced UNRWA and Ging, accusing them of using their summer camps to corrupt the morals of Palestinian youth. Hamas has its own network of summer camps and the two organizations are regarded to be vying for influence with Gazan youth. In September 2011 it was reported that, under pressure from Hamas, UNRWA has made all its summer camps single-sex. At the same time it was reported that UNRWA has suspended the introduction of Holocaust studies in its schools.
See also
- List of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East employees
- Israel, Palestinians and the United Nations
- Palestinian peoplePalestinian peopleThe Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
- Palestine refugee
- Israeli-Palestinian conflictIsraeli-Palestinian conflictThe Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
- Palestinian textbook controversy
External links
- Official UNRWA homepage
- UNRWA 'Peace Starts Here' video series
- UNRWA Facebook profile
- UNRWA Twitter profile
- UNRWA YouTube channel
- UNRWA in Syria
- American Friends of UNRWA
- UNRWA Spanish Committee
- Collection of relevant documents
- United States GAO report on UNRWA (pdf)
- Map showing all camps serviced by UNRWA
- U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants' Campaign to End Refugee Warehousing in refugee camps around the world, people are confined to their settlement and denied their basic rights.
- Israel Feuds With Agency Set Up to Aid Palestinians (New York Times: October 18, 2004)
- Fixing UNRWA: Repairing the UN's Troubled System of Aid to Palestinian Refugees (By James G. Lindsay, Washington Institute for Near East PolicyWashington Institute for Near East PolicyThe Washington Institute for Near East Policy is a think tank based in Washington, D.C. focused on United States foreign policy in the Middle East. It was established by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 1985...
: January 2009)