UN agency for Palestinian refugees makes ‘urgent’ appeal for funding

The UN agency caring for Palestinian refugees will be unable to pay full November and December salaries unless it raises $70 million (€60 million) by the end of the month.

"If additional funding is not pledged in the next weeks, Unrwa will be forced to defer partial salaries to all staff," said the agency's commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini.

“I am deeply saddened to know that the earned salaries of our fearless, resilient, social, sanitation and healthcare workers on the front lines, and our teachers working to ensure students’ education continues during this emergency health crisis, are at risk,” he stated.

The cuts will affect 28,000 regular staff, the majority of them refugees, but not those employed in projects funded by separate emergency appeals.

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Unrwa provides food, healthcare, education and welfare services for 5.7 million Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

The coronavirus pandemic has deepened the insecurities of Palestinians already facing warfare in Syria, multiple crises in Lebanon, economic meltdown in Jordan, an Israeli blockade of Gaza and settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Since funds have run out cuts will be "major", said spokeswoman Tamara al-Rifai, without giving an estimate. Unrwa "never recovered" from the abrupt cancellation of US donations by President Donald Trump in early 2018, she added.

She said, however, that president-elect Joe Biden has said he will restore "humanitarian aid for the Palestinians people".

Mr Trump adopted the Israeli view that Palestinians made homeless during Israel’s 1948 war of establishment and their descendants should no longer be treated as a distinct national group but be permanently settled in the countries where they dwell.

The US president’s “deal of the century” plan to end the Arab-Israeli dispute envisioned Palestinian naturalisation by host governments, a prospect rejected by both Palestinians and the states concerned.

Until Mr Trump cut all funding the US had provided Unrwa with $300 million annually, about one-third of its budget. Last year the EU, individual member states, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Emirates, and Qatar made up for the shortfall. This year donations dropped appreciably as resources are stretched by the pandemic and en suing economic losses.

Since it began operations in 1950, Unrwa has struggled to obtain funding, notwithstanding the fact that failing to provide for Palestinian refugees could destabilise the Levant, where they live in “camps” that have become urban neighbourhoods.

Unrwa chiefs have toured the world in search of funds, which have dwindled as decades passed although the needs of the refugees have increased as their number has grown.

“Today’s call to the international community comes with the utmost urgency,” said Mr Lazzarini. He called on UN member states to provide a “reliable stream of funding” to enable Unrwa to carry on with its mission.