The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Palestinian Authority today signed a land agreement that will allow the United Nations agencies to build replacement homes in Rafah in the Gaza Strip.
The agreement will see the PA donate 430 dunums of land in Rafah to a project to rebuild homes for some of the more than 15,000 people whose homes in Rafah have been demolished by the Israeli military since the start of the current intifada. Read more about UNRWA, UNDP and the Palestinian Authority sign land agreement to rebuild homes in Rafah
The actress and human rights activist Vanessa Redgrave has made an appeal to the international community to increase its emergency humanitarian assistance to Palestinians suffering in the occupied Palestinian territory and to the Government of Israel to ease its movement restrictions on UN agencies. Ms Redgrave is making her first ever visit to Palestine, after nearly 30 years of campaigning for peace and justice in the Middle East, as a guest of UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, and as a Goodwill Ambassador of UNICEF, the UN’s children’s agency. Read more about Vanessa Redgrave makes humanitarian appeal for Gaza and the West Bank
A total of 67 countries and 34 international organisations will gather at the Geneva International Conference Centre on 7-8 June 2004 for the largest conference on the Palestine refugee issue in 56 years. Around 300 delegates will discuss the future of humanitarian assistance to millions of refugees scattered across the Middle East. Today, one third of all Palestinian refugees live in camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Read more about 67 countries and 34 international organisations gather for largest ever conference on Palestine refugees
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) today launched an appeal to the international community for $15.84 million to meet the immediate needs of the people of Rafah. The appeal follows weeks of the most intense destruction in Gaza since the start of the intifada. UNRWA needs the funds to provide emergency cash, food and housing assistance to the hundreds of families who have lost their homes, had a breadwinner killed or wounded, or who are in need of medical care. Read more about UNRWA launches $15.8 million crisis appeal for Rafah
Peter Hansen, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has today demanded an apology and retraction from the Israeli Government and Military for the damaging and baseless allegations they have made against UNRWA’s ambulance drivers in the Gaza Strip. In letters to the Israeli Minister of Defence and to General Mishlev, Mr Hansen states that despite repeated requests from UNRWA, no evidence of UNRWA ambulance drivers transporting the body parts of Israeli soldiers has been presented by the Government of Israel. Accordingly, he has no reason to believe that there is any truth at all to the extremely unfortunate accusation being made against UNRWA. Read more about UNRWA demands apology and retraction for "baseless charges" against UNRWA ambulance drivers
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) today handed over 86 new homes to refugee families from Rafah and Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip whose shelters have been destroyed by Israeli forces. The new shelters, which will house 93 families, or 475 refugees, are the concrete expression of UNRWA’s pledge to re-house all those refugees whose homes have been destroyed in the strife and who have no alternative accommodation. According to the Agency’s figures, by 10 May 2004 a total of 2,018 buildings, home to over 18,300 refugee and non-refugee Palestinians, had been destroyed or damaged beyond repair in the Gaza Strip since the start of the conflict in 2000. Read more about UNRWA provides new shelters for Gaza homeless
Israel has destroyed three times as many Palestinian homes in the past 12 months as it did during the first 31 months of the Intifada, according to UNRWA. Over the four-year period up to 15 May 2004, Israel demolished or damaged beyond repair over 3,000 Palestinian homes. Of those, more than 2,000 have been in the Gaza Strip. The humanitarian crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is stretching the limits of the Palestinian people as well as of humanitarian aid organizations working in the region, including UNRWA, explained Maher Nasser, the Chief of UNRWA’s Liaison Office in New York. Nasser was speaking at a 20 May 2004 briefing at the DC-based Palestine Center. Read more about Gaza Humanitarian Crisis Stretches Limits of Aid Organizations
In the early morning hours of 20 May, Israeli military forces broke into and occupied UNRWA’s Jenin Camp Reconstruction Project Office near Jenin camp in the West Bank. A shot was fired in the direction of UNRWA’s senior project manager, Mr. Paul Wolstenholme, as he attempted to gain access to the office, but fortunately he remained unharmed. Mr. Wolstenholme, who attempted to convince the soldiers to leave the UNRWA installation, was not only detained for over three hours and threatened with physical violence, but was handcuffed and blindfolded as well. Wolstenholme’s predecessor, Iain Hook was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier in November 2002. Read more about UNRWA protests Israeli incursion into Jenin Camp
The UN refugee agency UNRWA has issued a call to the Israeli military to halt its demolition operations in Rafah in the Gaza Strip where 12,600 people are now homeless. UNRWA has opened a school to house the latest victims of the destruction and is distributing tents, food, water, kitchen kits, mattresses and blankets. UNRWA estimates that it will now cost $32 million to re-house the 18,382 people who have lost their homes across the Gaza Strip. Peter Hansen, UNRWA’s Commissioner-General said: “We are extremely alarmed that even more demolitions are planned. Already huge swathes of Rafah have been flattened, to the extent that some families have experienced the trauma of demolition more than once.” Read more about UNRWA: Alarmed at Demolitions
In one of the most intense periods of destruction since the start of the intifada, the Israeli military has demolished, or damaged beyond repair, 131 residential buildings in the Gaza Strip in the last ten days. The demolitions have made 1,100 people newly homeless, according to figures released today by UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. The destruction in the first 10 days of May brings the total number of people to lose their homes in the Gaza Strip to 17,594. Read more about 1,100 Palestinians made homeless in Gaza in 10 days of destruction
