More than two years ago, the United States announced that it would no longer provide funds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
The agency’s Director General Lazarini confirmed on the 26th that UNRWA had run out of funds and for the first time in history there was not enough cash to cover the expenses from now to the end of this year.
Lazarini, Director-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East: We are on the edge of a cliff, but I still believe that if the international community now shows unity, we can avoid falling.
Lazarini said that UNRWA will continue to provide all its services and will pay its staff’s salaries in November. Lazarini also said that with the increase in the number of new coronary pneumonia cases, the health system in the Gaza Strip “is about to collapse.”
UNRWA was established in 1949 and is mainly responsible for providing humanitarian assistance, education and medical services to millions of registered Palestine refugees living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. It needs about 80 million per month. U.S. dollars can maintain operations.
The United States was once the main funder of UNRWA, but the US State Department announced in August 2018 that the United States would no longer provide funds to UNRWA.
