UN Renews Agency Helping Palestinian Refugees

Date: 14 December 2019 - 21:54

News ID: ۷۳۸۹۹

UNITED NATIONS (Dispatches) – The United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly renewed the mandate for a UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees for another three years amid a cash shortfall triggered by a halt in U.S. funding.
The mandate of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was extended until June 30, 2023, with 169 votes in favor and nine abstentions, while the United States and the Zionist regime voted against.
UNRWA, which is established in 1949, provides education, health and relief services as well as housing and microfinance assistance to more than 5 million registered refugees in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East al-Quds, as well as in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
The agency has faced budgetary difficulties since last year, when the United States halted its aid of $360 million per year.
In a statement published by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas praised the vote as a victory for international law and the rights of the Palestinian refugees.
The Hamas resistance movement, which is based in the Gaza Strip, hailed the UN vote as a defeat for the United States and a failure of its attempts to pressure UN member-states against UNRWA.
"We welcome the decision to renew the international mandate to UNRWA and we see it as another failure to hostile U.S. policies to the Palestinian rights,” Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
The U.S. mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the vote.
Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official, praised the UN vote on Friday and said it was the United Nations’ responsibility to combat what she called U.S. and Zionist attacks on Palestinian refugees.
"All attempts at trying to limit UNRWA’s mandate or defund it or attack it have failed, and we hope that the international community will continue to come to the rescue,” she said.