Gaza Refugees Protest UNRWA’s Downsized Food Coupons

Date: 22 February 2021 - 21:36

News ID: ۸۷۸۹۰

GAZA STRIP (Dispatches) – Dozens of Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip staged a protest on Sunday against the recent decision by UNRWA to downsize food coupons, Anadolu has reported.
Organized by a popular committee affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the protest was held outside UNRWA’s food distribution center at Al-Shati (Beach) Refugee Camp. It was attended by representatives of the national factions, associations and community institutions in the refugee camps.
The protesters expressed their rejection of UNRWA’s decision to impose cuts on its services. They accused the agency of taking the first practical steps towards cutting its essential services for the refugees.
The popular committees demanded that UNRWA should cancel the new single coupon system and reintroduce the two coupon system, to redress the balance for Palestinian refugees classified as being under the extreme poverty line. An estimated 770,000 refugees are already at that level.
UNRWA provides education, health and welfare services to millions of Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank, al-Quds ,the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
The Zionist regime has been campaigning to defund the UN agency in an attempt to end the refugees’ right of return. The crisis deepened after former U.S. president Donald Trump decided to cancel funding to UNRWA in 2018.
The vast majority of Gazans are refugees who were kicked out of their towns and villages upon the establishment of the regime in 1948.
Palestinian refugees who suffered for more than seven decades say UNRWA cuts will only increase their plight amid the Coronavirus pandemic. Over 1.3 million Palestinian refugees live in the Gaza Strip and their hardships have increased under the Zionist regime’s blockade.