RAMALLAH (Arab News) – The Palestinians are profoundly concerned by UNRWA Commissioner-General’s declarations that the organization will delegate its humanitarian services for 5 million Palestinian refugees living in 58 refugees camps to other organizations to overcome its severe financial crisis, Palestinian sources confirmed to Arab News.
The UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said in a letter to the Palestinian refugees dated April 23: “This year, a very harsh winter and the impact of the war in Ukraine on prices of food and fuel in the region add to the daily hardship you are facing. I witnessed this firsthand a few days ago when I met with Palestine refugees in Khan Danoun Camp and Yarmouk in Syria, many refugees shared with me their struggle to meet their basic needs and how the socio-economic situation compels them to return to live amid the rubble.”
He indicated the economic hardship the Palestinian refugees suffer in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan and Lebanon, due to security and unstable economic situations in those countries.
“The painful reality is that in the last ten years, and despite immense outreach and fundraising efforts, the resources available to UNRWA have stagnated, while the needs of Palestine refugees and cost of operations keep increasing,” Lazzarini said.
“The now chronic underfunding of UNRWA is the result of a combination of shifting geopolitical priorities, new regional dynamics and the emergence of new humanitarian crises compounded by donor fatigue for one of the world’s longest unresolved conflicts. All these have led to a clear de-prioritization of the Palestinian issue, including most recently among some donors from the Arab region.”
The international organization has provided its services to 7 million Palestinian refugees living in Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon since 1948, with a noticeable reduction in the quality and quantity of those services.
UNRWA was hit hard in 2018, when former president Donald Trump halted U.S. funding. However, the re-engagement of the U.S. under President Joe Biden has been offset by the lack of commitments from the Persian Gulf Arab states, and by decreases in grants from other countries such as the UK.