• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Why Israel doesn’t like the UNRWA:

    UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) was established in 1949 by a U.N. General Assembly resolution, following the war surrounding the founding of Israel, when 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes.

    Today it directly employs 30,000 Palestinians, serving the civic and humanitarian needs of 5.9 million descendants of those refugees, in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and in vast camps in neighbouring Arab countries. In Gaza, it employs 13,000 people, running the enclave’s schools, its primary healthcare clinics and other social services, as well as distributing humanitarian aid. Its services in Gaza have increased in importance since 2005, when Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade causing an economic collapse with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world.

    https://www.reuters.com/world/what-is-unrwa-un-palestinian-refugee-agency-2024-01-29/

    It was created to deal with the fallout from Israel’s first ethnic cleansing, and since Israel hasn’t stopped, it’s still around.

    And right now would be a terrible time to get rid of it.