Refugee Assistance
Over the last three months (January – March 2002) the escalation
of Israel’s military campaign against the Palestinian people,
including Palestinian refugees, exacted a heavy demand on UNRWA
services. During this period refugee camps in the 1967 occupied
Palestinian territories came under even more direct assault by
Israeli forces resulting in a dramatic increase in deaths and
injuries among refugees and UN staff as well as heavy damage to
refugee shelters and UN installations in the refugee camps.
Israel’s military assault on Palestinian refugee camps in March
resulted in damage to 22 UNRWA schools, four health clinics, two
ambulances and four camp service centers in addition to roads,
alleyways and other infrastructure in the camps.
Funding
During 2001 UNRWA made two appeals to the international
community for special funding of emergency operations in the 1967
occupied Palestinian territories. The appeals amounted to US $114
or more than one-third of the Agency’s entire 2001 regular budget
for all areas of operations. The largest top donors included the
US/USAID, the European Commission Humanitarian Office (ECHO), the
UK, the Islamic Development Bank and the Netherlands. As of
February 2002 approximately three-quarters of the total
contributions had been received by UNRWA.
The people of Syria continued to make generous contributions to
UNRWA’s emergency programs over the past three months. The Syrian
Arab Popular Committee, established in 2001 to channel money from
all sectors of Syrian society – from factory workers to businessmen
and artists – to those in need in Gaza and the West Bank, donated
more than US $750,000 to UNRWA. Syrian beekeepers in Damascus area
donated 527,050 Syrian pounds (US $11,458) for refugees and other
Palestinians suffering from 17 months of violence. Due to the fact
that the honey could not be shipped to the territories, the 1,000
kg of honey was put up for sale by UNRWA staff. Payment ranged from
400 Syrian pounds to 5,000 pounds per jar. “I am overwhelmed by the
eagerness of men, women, and children here to contribute to UNRWA’s
emergency aid to the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank,” said
Angela Williams, director of UNRWA Affairs in Syria. “We have never
experienced anything like it.”
At the beginning of 2002 UNRWA announced a fourth appeal to the
international community to cover emergency operations in the
territories for 2002 totaling US $117 million. The majority of the
emergency appeal for the year is again targeted for emergency job
creation and food assistance. The escalation of Israel’s military
campaign to crush Palestinian resistance to Israel’s illegal
military occupation, however, has already exacted a heavy toll on
UNRWA finances and brings into question whether the emergency
appeal will cover emergency needs for the entire year.
UNRWA estimates that Israel’s three-week war on Palestinian refugee
camps in March alone will cost at least US $3.8 million in
immediate costs. Repair and reconstruction of damaged and destroyed
refugee shelters alone is estimated to cost US $2.8 million. This
figure amounts to nearly half the total emergency budget requested
by UNRWA for repair and rehabilitation of refugee shelters for all
of 2002 and exceeds the budget for the West Bank by four times.
During 2002 UNRWA intended to focus greater attention on the repair
of refugee shelters in the poorer areas of the southern Gaza Strip
and the hardest hit village areas where refugees reside in the West
Bank. A significant proportion of the Agency’s emergency funds for
shelter repair will now have to be redirected to the camps.
| The policy headquarters targeted today has
been bombed five times already and is little more than an empty
shell. It is difficult to fathom just what military or strategic
purpose is being served by bombing it for a sixth time. What is
clear is that by bombing a crowded city center at 9 a.m. on a
weekday morning the innocent children at our schools have been
severely traumatized. I have been told that young children started
screaming and crying at the sound of the explosion. It is
horrifying to think what would have happened if the bomb had gone
astray, as indeed one did on February 20th when it landed on the
roof of one of the schools but thankfully did not explode.
UNRWA has to protect the refugees, to provide them with their
shelter and their basic needs and so I am shocked and pained by
what I saw in Balata. Not only shocked by the destruction of the
refugees’ homes, the destruction of their water supplies,
electricity and other amenities, but also by the fear and terror
that the camp population has had to live through. |
UNRWA’s estimate to cleanup and repair the widespread material damage left in the wake of Israel’s brutal assault on the camps does include costs related to the future social and health needs of the severely traumatized refugee population. The heavy loss of life in the camps and high number of injured refugees, for example, will likely result in a further rise in poverty and the number of special hardship cases due to the loss of household income, an increase in health needs including physical rehabilitation, and a greater need for remedial education to limit the impact of lost school days and trauma on refugee students.
The damage inflicted by the Israeli military since the beginning of the al-Aqsa intifada also means that the international community is having to allocate financial resources to pay for the same projects several times over due to repeated damage and destruction. Since the beginning of the intifada, for example, the Al-Nour Rehabilitation Centre for the Visually Impaired in the Gaza Strip, has been damaged and repaired more than five times. In the case of the US, in particular, one of the largest donors to UNRWA’s regular budget and emergency appeals, the American government is, at the same time, providing financial resources to UNRWA and providing Israel with the weapons that destroy the projects paid for, in part, by US funds.
Over the course of more than three decades of Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, UNRWA has repeatedly filed claims for damages resulting from Israel’s illegal military occupation. Israel has yet to pay. As long as the international community is willing to provide Israel with the resources it requires to maintain its current policies towards refugees and the Palestinian population in the 1967 occupied territories as well as pay for the damage (if only in part) brought about by these policies, it will be impossible to facilitate a solution to the refugee issue consistent with international law as set forth in General Assembly Resolution 194 and bring an end to Israel’s illegal occupation.
Austerity Measures
Israel’s continued military escalation which is leaving behind an ever increasing toll in human and material loss and damage combined with lack of adequate donor funding continues to force UNRWA to implement a number of austerity measures. By the beginning of 2002, UNRWA noted that the destruction of an increasing number of homes by Israeli military forces and the limited financial resources at UNRWA’s disposal for rehousing had led the Agency to reduce the costs of each housing unit by canceling or reducing the following items in the designs: one room, external staircase, internal painting, bitumen membrane water proofing, solar heating panels, paving of pathways (only entrance to be paved), and kitchen cupboards by approximately 50 percent. It is yet unclear if the massive destruction of refugee shelters in March will lead to further austerity measures.
Employment Assistance
During 2001 UNRWA provided emergency temporary employment opportunities to more than 14,000 individuals (11,787 in Gaza and 2,669 in the West Bank) supporting more than 100,000 dependents. Approximately 20 percent of the beneficiaries were women. In January UNRWA began to extend the emergency employment program to nearly 3 dozen villages in the West Bank where a significant number, if not the majority, of the residents are refugees. With around 35 percent of the total population in the occupied territories unemployed and much higher rates in refugee camps Agency employment programs are unable to stem the increasing number of families living below the poverty line due to loss of income as well as loss of savings and damage to material assets.
Food Assistance
By the end of 2001, UNRWA had distributed a total of 857,191 food rations to 124,974 families in the Gaza Strip. UNRWA continued to provide food assistance to refugee-women married to non-refugee men and over 600 non-refugee households in places under strict siege by the Israeli military, including the Mawasi area of Khan Younis and Rafah, and Beit Hanoun town. In the West Bank the Agency distributed food parcels to refugee families in villages around Hebron, Jerusalem and Nablus, including Yatta, Irtas, Halhoul, Beit Ummar; Beit Rima, Qbeibeh, Beit Surik and Qattaneh; and, Anabta, Kufr Rumman, Taybeh and Kufr Labad.
Cash Assistance
By the end of 2001, UNRWA had made cash grants to 7,014 families
in the Gaza Strip worth a total of US $2,380,136 and US $817,560 to
10,885 families in the West Bank.
Shelter Assistance
As of the end of 2001 Israel had destroyed 248 refugee shelters
in the Gaza Strip housing 350 refugee families totaling 1,997
persons. The majority of the families have no alternative
accommodation. In total 324 homes, housing 434 families (2,472
persons) have been destroyed by Israel since the beginning of the
al-Aqsa intifada. During the year, UNRWA assisted 3,691 refugee
families with repairs to their shelters in the West Bank. The
number of refugee shelters destroyed by Israeli forces rose
dramatically in January and then again in March 2002.
Israel’s invasion of southern Gaza early in the year resulted in
the destruction of 91 refugee shelters housing 125 refugee families
(669 persons). In total 97 dwellings were destroyed by Israeli
forces in the Gaza Strip in January 2002. The homes provided
shelter to 139 families totaling 773 individuals. At the end of
February Israeli forces began a massive military offensive against
Palestinian refugee camps throughout the 1967 occupied Palestinian
territories. The three-week military assault resulted in the
destruction of at least 141 refugee shelters and caused damage to
an estimated 1,800 shelters. By the end of 2001 UNRWA had
distributed 78,360 blankets, 8,771 mattress, 240 tents, 446 mats
and 252 kitchen sets to assist families whose shelters were
destroyed during Israel’s military assaults in the Gaza Strip since
the beginning of the al-Aqsa intifada at the end of September 2000.
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Health Assistance
By the end of 2001, UNRWA had provided first aid at UNRWA health
centers or mobile clinics, or transported to hospital 1,304 persons
injured during the intifada in the Gaza Strip. Military closures
and other limitations on freedom of movement resulted in a loss of
207 person-days among UNRWA medical staff in January. UNRWA’s
outpatient load has increased by 23 percent over the previous year
due to the deteriorating economic conditions in the 1967 occupied
Palestinian territories. At the same time the Agency has faced
increasing restrictions on humanitarian access for its medical
teams, including attacks on ambulances by Israeli military forces
and the death of medical workers.
Education Assistance
At the beginning of the year UNRWA was unable to hold uniform
examinations for the first time since 1996 at West Bank Agency
schools at the end of the semester due to restrictions on movement
that made it practically impossible to distribute tests to all
UNRWA schools. In December 2001 the Agency recorded a record 5,228
teacher absences accounting for nearly half of all absences
recorded for the entire school year. As of January 2002 UNRWA noted
that a total of 13,121 teachers’ days and 256 school days had been
lost in the West Bank. UNRWA continues to provide group and
individual counseling sessions for Palestinian refugee students to
help them cope with stress as well as advice to parents. During the
winter vacation after the end of the semester in January, UNRWA
provided remedial classes in the Gaza Strip for around 35,000
students in the 4th through 6th elementary grades and 30,000 pupils
in three elementary grades.
Humanitarian Access
Over the past several months restrictions imposed by Israel on the movement of humanitarian goods and supplies from the West Bank and Israel into the Gaza Strip continued. Truckloads of supplies destined for Gaza remain stuck in the Agency’s West Bank field office in Jerusalem. UNRWA is unable to obtain travel permits for local staff to move between Gaza and the West Bank. In early March, for example, the Israeli military prevented the UN from making a delivery of humanitarian supplies, including urgently needed medicines, food, blankets and tents to Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank. Commissioner General Peter Hansen accompanied the shipment and protested in person but the convoy was refused entry. “UNRWA is responsible for the well-being of the refugees, for their shelters, for their protection,” stated Hansen. “By preventing the UN from carrying out its humanitarian mandate the IDF is in contravention of international conventions covering the protection of civilians during conflicts.”