Gazans protest cutbacks in UN services

Hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated outside the United Nation’s Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip on Sunday to protest the agency’s reduction of services, the result of an unprecedented financial crisis.

The United Nations issued an urgent appeal for contributions last week to prevent such a cutback, but to no avail.

One of the banners raised by protesters read, “The reduction in services is leading to Gaza being blasted by poverty, oppression and insecurity,” according to the Palestinian Ma’an news agency.

The special coordinator for the Palestinian peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, warned the UN Security Council that UNRWA has a $100-million shortfall that needs to be solved in the coming weeks.

Otherwise, he said, “there is a serious risk that UNRWA schools, which educate 500,000 children throughout the Middle East, will not open.”

Walid al-Awad, an official from the Palestinian People’s Party, condemned the postponement of the school year, telling Ma’an that he and the people he represents refuse to accept the UN decision.

“This will have grave implications for Palestine refugee children in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and for the stability and security of a region already in turmoil,” Mladenov said.

He added, “I am deeply concerned about UNRWA’s current unprecedented financial crisis.”

Talal Abu Zarifa, a member of the marxist DFLP — the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine — told Ma’an that the UN needed to rethink its policies.

Abu Zarifa called for the international community and private donors to help UNRWA overcome its $100-million debt, so it could better serve the people of Gaza.

Mladenov also urged donor nations to increase their support for the Palestinian Authority, which is running at a $500-million deficit this year — a gap which, he said, could not be covered with fiscal measures alone.