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BEIRUT (Reuters) – The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said on Tuesday that without an infusion of new funding, it is “likely or very likely” that the agency will not be able to provide some services or pay salaries by the fall. Commissioner-General Philip Lazzarini UNRWA said at a press conference in Beirut that the agency responsible for providing services to Palestinian refugees has faced a deficit of between $150 million and $200 million annually in recent years.
Donors at a pledging conference earlier this month provided just $107 million in new funds, far short of the $300 million the agency called for to keep its programs going through the end of the year.
These programs include health and education services and, in some cases, cash assistance for families in Syria, Lebanon, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and Jordan.
While acknowledging that the agency’s funding woes had become “almost a record-breaking one,” Lazarini He warned donors not to “take for granted UNRWA’s ability to spoil it.”
In Lebanon, which has been experiencing an unprecedented economic crisis since 2019, some 93 percent of the country’s Palestinian refugees now live in poverty.
Palestinians in Lebanon are prohibited from owning property and working in most white-collar occupations. The country’s deteriorating economic situation has prompted many to take to the sea in often fatal attempts to reach Europe.
When the agency recently announced 14 cleaners for refugee camps in Lebanon, Lazzarini said, it received 37,000 applicants, including many with university degrees.
“It shows how little opportunities there are for Palestinian refugees here when it comes to job opportunities,” he said.
Lazzarini said the international community needed to have an “appropriate and honest” discussion about the agency’s future role in the absence of a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would mean the end of its mandate.
“Next year we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the establishment of an agency that was supposed to be a temporary agency,” Lazzarini said. “At the same time, we seem never to have strayed from a lasting and just political solution.”
UNRWA was established following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 to serve the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes. Today, their number has grown to about 5.9 million people, mostly in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as well as in neighboring countries in the Middle East.
Donors at a pledging conference earlier this month provided just $107 million in new funds, far short of the $300 million the agency called for to keep its programs going through the end of the year.
These programs include health and education services and, in some cases, cash assistance for families in Syria, Lebanon, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and Jordan.
While acknowledging that the agency’s funding woes had become “almost a record-breaking one,” Lazarini He warned donors not to “take for granted UNRWA’s ability to spoil it.”
In Lebanon, which has been experiencing an unprecedented economic crisis since 2019, some 93 percent of the country’s Palestinian refugees now live in poverty.
Palestinians in Lebanon are prohibited from owning property and working in most white-collar occupations. The country’s deteriorating economic situation has prompted many to take to the sea in often fatal attempts to reach Europe.
When the agency recently announced 14 cleaners for refugee camps in Lebanon, Lazzarini said, it received 37,000 applicants, including many with university degrees.
“It shows how little opportunities there are for Palestinian refugees here when it comes to job opportunities,” he said.
Lazzarini said the international community needed to have an “appropriate and honest” discussion about the agency’s future role in the absence of a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would mean the end of its mandate.
“Next year we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the establishment of an agency that was supposed to be a temporary agency,” Lazzarini said. “At the same time, we seem never to have strayed from a lasting and just political solution.”
UNRWA was established following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 to serve the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes. Today, their number has grown to about 5.9 million people, mostly in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as well as in neighboring countries in the Middle East.
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