UNRWA staff continue to work in Gaza where possible. How the Gaza War Has Affected UNRWA’s Ability to Support Palestinians? Peace and Security
In addition to providing emergency assistance to those living in the occupied Palestinian territories, the UN Refugee Agency (UNRWA) provides a range of vital services in areas such as health and education. The war in Gaza, which has lasted for more than a year, has seriously undermined the agency’s ability to scale up its activities in these areas.
Emergency Aid
Even before the war, more than a million Palestinian refugees were living in absolute poverty, many of whom could not afford healthy food. Residents of the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, were struggling to make ends meet under a 15-year Israeli air, land and sea blockade. To help ease the living conditions of these people, UNRWA provided them with food, medical and financial assistance.
Since the start of the war, UNRWA’s ability to support the people of Gaza has been severely undermined, not because of a shortage of essential supplies, but because of access restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities that prevent UNRWA from distributing humanitarian aid in the quantities it needs.
The head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, said in October this year that about 30 trucks carrying humanitarian aid were arriving in Gaza every day, just six percent of the commercial and humanitarian volumes allowed in before the war.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), almost half of the Strip’s population lacks the minimum amount of water per person per day (15 liters) for drinking, cooking and hygiene.
Health
Before the current war, UNRWA had been providing comprehensive primary health care to Palestine refugees for more than 60 years. There were 22 health centres in Gaza with wards and laboratories, individual maternity services and family planning services.
Several schools in Gaza had psychosocial counsellors, and a number of health centres had departments to help children cope with anxiety, stress and depression.
Hospitals have been repeatedly targeted by the Israeli military since October 7 last year. In recent days, the Kamal Adwan clinic in northern Gaza has become a “besieged war zone,” according to senior UNICEF official Adel Khodr.
“Newborns, sick and injured children in need of intensive care are being killed in tents, in incubators and in their parents’ arms,” she said on Tuesday. “The fact that this has not mobilized sufficient political will to end the war is evidence of a fundamental crisis in humanity.”
UNRWA played a key role in the multi-agency polio vaccination campaign, vaccinating some 560,000 children across the Gaza Strip in the first round and some 545,000 in the second. However, thousands more remain out of reach, with Israel’s constant relocation orders and bombings creating serious delays and obstacles.
UNRWA has managed to keep eight of its health centres in Gaza operational. Despite the extremely dangerous conditions in which health workers work, UNRWA health teams have carried out some 6.2 million primary health care consultations over the past year.
Education
Before the war, UNRWA’s education programme in Gaza was the largest of any the agency had run, with 284 schools, more than 10,500 teachers and some 300,000 registered students.
While UNRWA does not have a mandate to change curricula or textbooks (this is a matter of national sovereignty), the agency strives to ensure that teaching in the schools it runs is consistent with UN values and principles.
Since the war began, children in the Gaza Strip have had no safe access to school. In August this year, UNRWA launched a programme to create learning spaces that provide recreational and educational activities. Some 9,500 children, 60 per cent of whom are girls, have benefited from this opportunity in 36 specialised shelters across Gaza.
Nearly 85 per cent of UNRWA schools in Gaza were destroyed or damaged during the war. Many of them were used as shelters for displaced people.
As a result, children in Gaza have only completed six weeks of the 38-week 2023-2024 school year, effectively losing an entire year of education.
Economic Development
For decades before the war, UNRWA ran programs to spur economic development by supporting entrepreneurs, helping women find employment, and empowering people with disabilities.
The agency’s Microfinance Department enabled poor and marginalized people to create sustainable income streams by providing loans to those in need.
In 2020, to address unemployment, UNRWA established an IT Services Center, enabling Palestine refugees to access opportunities in the digital sector and start new careers career.
These and other initiatives have been significantly impacted by the war: according to a UN report released in late October, economic development in Gaza and the West Bank has been set back by almost 70 years, equivalent to the level of mid-1955.
Refugee Camps
Before the war, UNRWA’s programs to improve the living conditions of Palestinian refugees had built hundreds of housing units and created a network of sewage and drainage facilities.
As a result of the fighting and general escalation of violence in Gaza over the past year, about 66 percent of all buildings have been damaged or destroyed and densely populated refugee camps have been emptied. According to the UN, more than 227,590 housing units have been damaged.
The Jabaliya refugee camp, for example, has been hit by air strikes several times. In June, UNRWA reported “horrific” scenes of destruction in the camp, and in November, more than 50 children were reportedly killed in attacks on two residential buildings where hundreds of people were sheltering.