Rosie Scammell reports in The National April 17, 2021
UNRWA: Palestinians relieved and comforted by return of US support
April 17, 2021
Reversal of Trump-era decision gives funding and flexibility to UN agency helping refugees
Palestinian Walid al-Hattab, widely known as ‘the chef to the poor’, distributes soup to people in need in Gaza City during Ramadan.
Washington’s pledge to fund the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has been greeted with relief in Bethlehem, where residents hope the promise may bring an end to the hardships of recent years.
“People need the support and help,” said Fatima Abu Salim, a resident of Bethlehem’s Aida refugee camp, after Washington announced a $150 million donation to the agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
“We’re very happy that they’re helping the Palestinian people,” added the 58-year-old, arriving at a new health centre built by the UN agency.
The $4m health centre was funded by Saudi Arabia, providing doctors, dentists and a laboratory to nearly 7,000 residents as well as Palestinians living beyond Aida.
While UNRWA has been able to continue such projects in recent years, the 2018 decision by then US president Donald Trump to cut funding has had a severe impact on the agency’s work.
“It wasn’t easy at all for us as refugees when we heard that there was a cut, that the US are not anymore providing us with their support,” said Hanadi Ayaseh Darwish, head of UNRWA’s infrastructure and camp improvement programme in the West Bank.
The UN agency operates across East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. In addition to healthcare, it runs hundreds of schools and schemes such as cash handouts to those in need.
“It’s not a matter of cutting only the services, it’s the hope,” said Mrs Darwish, who grew up in Aida and designed the new health centre and attached school.
Washington had been the largest contributor to UNRWA, giving nearly $360 million in 2017 which amounted to almost a third of the agency’s budget. That was slashed to $60 million the following year, when Mr Trump decided to end donations entirely.
The decision hit the agency’s ability to provide services for about 5.7 Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and elsewhere, affecting everything from sanitation to building maintenance.
“We used, several years ago, to have half a million for one year to spend on maintenance. This year we received 25 [thousand],” said Mrs Darwish. “You definitely will not be able to even change the handles on the doors if they were broken,” she said.