Dag 21 - UNRWA

Eind januari beschuldigde Israël de VN-hulporganisatie UNRWA ervan dat medewerkers van de organisatie betrokken waren bij de aanslag op 7 oktober. Spoedig werd de financiering van UNRWA in meerdere Westerse landen stopgezet. Ook minister Van Leeuwen voor Buitenlandse Handel en Ontwikkelingssamenwerking draaide de geldkraan dicht. Op 22 april is uit het onafhankelijke Colonna onderzoek gebleken dat Israël de aantijgingen aan het adres van VN organisatie niet heeft onderbouwd. Wat is UNRWA? En waarom had het stoppen van financiële steun zodanig grote gevolgen voor Palestijnen? Mijn tante werkt voor UNRWA. Ze legt hieronder uit wat UNRWA precies doet en de invloed van de oorlog tegen Gaza op hun werk.

UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. The United Nations General Assembly established UNRWA in 1949 with a mandate to provide humanitarian assistance and protection to registered Palestine refugees in the Agency’s area of operations pending a just and lasting solution to their plight.

UNRWA operates in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, The Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Tens of thousands of Palestine refugees who lost their homes and livelihoods due to the 1948 conflict continue to be displaced and in need of support, nearly 75 years on.

Fields of services

UNRWA helps Palestine Refugees achieve their full potential in human development through quality services it provides in education, health care, relief and social services, protection, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance, and emergency assistance.

Funds

UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions. However, these contributions have always been under the actual needs of UNRWA to be able to cover all operation costs in all fields of work which have always been a limitation for UNRWA to upgrade and or/expand its services to refugees.

War on Gaza

Since the outbreak of the war on Gaza (October 7th), UNRWA has been accused by the Israelis of having 7 employees involved in the event without any evidence supporting these accusations. An independent investigation mission that was appointed by the UN has come to the conclusion that UNRWA is innocent of such accusation until providing supporting evidence.

Accordingly, many countries which stopped funding UNRWA have activated their funds starting from their belief of the highly important work the UNRWA is doing for refugees especially these days in Gaza with the disastrous situation there and no other agency can replace UNRWA with its tremendous work they do.

Many, if not all,  UNRWA installations have been fully or partially destroyed in addition to the lack of funds and lack of security to staff to operate in Gaza which have negatively affected their services to people there and in all countries where they operate.

Veel liefs en tot snel,

Rona