Geneva: The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, appealed Tuesday for $1.6 billion for its work in 2023, as it struggles to overcome chronic budget shortfalls.
UNRWA — which provides services to nearly six million Palestinians registered in the Palestinian territories, including Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, as well as in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria — warned that “compounding challenges” had placed it under “immense strain.”
The agency, which counts nearly 30,000 staff — most of them Palestinian refugees — runs more than 700 schools that offer education to half a million children, and provides health, sanitation and social services, including food and cash assistance.
Out of the $1.6 billion requested, UNRWA said $848 million was needed for such core services.
It said another $781.6 million was needed for emergency operations.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said the agency played “an indispensable role” for millions of Palestinian refugees.
“We work to maintain the delivery of basic services in an incredibly difficult financial and political context,” he said in a statement.
The agency warned that most Palestinian refugees now live below the poverty line and a growing number are dependent on UNRWA for assistance, sometimes for their “sheer survival.”
Lazzarini said he had just returned from a trip to Syria where he had “witnessed firsthand indescribable suffering and despair.”
That situation, he said, was “sadly mirrored in other places like Lebanon and Gaza where Palestine refugees are hitting rock bottom.”
“Many told me that all they asked for was a life of dignity; that’s not much to ask for.”
UNRWA has long faced chronic budget shortfalls, which worsened dramatically in 2018 when former US president Donald Trump cut support to the agency.
His administration branded UNRWA “irredeemably flawed,” siding with Israeli criticisms of the agency founded in 1949, a year after Israel’s creation.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has fully restored support but UNRWA has said it is still struggling.
Last year, UNRWA only raised nearly $1.2 billion of the $1.6 billion it had appealed for, Lazzarini said.
“We cannot and should not be always scrambling to bring in funds to cover our contribution to human rights and stability,” Lazzarini said, stressing the need for “a more sustainable model of funding... a predictable, long-term and regular source of funding.”
UN Palestinian refugee agency seeks $1.6 bn
https://arab.news/z28en
UN Palestinian refugee agency seeks $1.6 bn
- The agency runs more than 700 schools that offer education to half a million children, and provides health, sanitation and socia
Syrian government vows to protect Kurds in Aleppo, accuses SDF of planting explosives
- Kurdish-led group targeting neighborhoods with mortars, machine guns, Ministry of Defense says
- Army declares Ashrafieh, Sheikh Maqsoud ‘closed military zone’ after hundreds of civilians evacuated
LONDON: The Syrian government on Wednesday affirmed its commitment to protect all citizens, including Kurds, as armed tensions in Aleppo between the Syrian army and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces continued for a fourth day.
The Ministry of Defense accused the SDF of planting explosives on roads and setting booby traps in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighborhoods, and bombarding them with mortar shells and heavy machine gun fire.
The army designated the two neighborhoods a “closed military zone” after the Syrian Arab Red Crescent evacuated 850 civilians from the area.
The government said in a statement that the SDF played no role in the city’s security and military affairs.
“This confirms that the exclusive responsibility for maintaining security and protecting residents falls upon the Syrian state and its legitimate institutions, in accordance with the constitution and applicable laws,” it said.
Protecting all citizens, including Kurds, was a non-negotiable responsibility upheld without discrimination based on ethnicity or affiliation, it said.
It also rejected any portrayal of its security measures as targeting a specific community, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.
“The authorities concerned stress that those displaced from areas of tension are exclusively civilians, all of them Kurdish citizens who left their neighborhoods out of fear of escalation,” the statement said.
“They sought refuge in areas under the control of the state and its official institutions, which clearly demonstrates the trust of Kurdish citizens in the Syrian state and its ability to provide them with protection and security and refutes claims alleging that they face threats or targeted actions.”
The government called for the withdrawal of armed groups from Aleppo.
At least three civilians and a Syrian soldier have been killed and dozens more injured in Aleppo since Tuesday. Authorities have accused the SDF of targeting medical and educational facilities.
The escalation in violence has dealt a blow to an agreement between the two sides that was meant to be implemented by the end of last year.
The Syrian government reached an agreement with the SDF in March that included plans to integrate the group’s military, territory and natural resources, including oil fields, into the new government in Damascus.
