2024-03-11 17:56:52
Among the children playing in the streets of the Aida refugee camp, near Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, little Ahmad Damaseh, 10, dreams of becoming a doctor.
He is part of the fourth generation of Damaseh to live in this refugee camp. His family fled the Jerusalem neighborhood of Deir Aban seventy-five years ago during the Nakba, when 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homes at the time of Israel’s creation.
The future of the Damaseh family depends on a UN agency that cares for Palestinian refugees in the occupied territories and neighboring countries [UNRWA en anglais ; Office de secours et de travaux des Nations unies pour les réfugiés de Palestine dans le Proche-Orient, en français]. It is this same agency that provided the Damaseh family with their first tent in Aida.
UNRWA manages 702 schools that accommodate 500,000 children and students, according to Anwar Hammam, deputy head of the PLO’s refugee department. [Organisation de libération de la Palestine, l’entité politique supposée représenter le peuple palestinien]. It provides humanitarian aid to the 400,000 people who live in Aida.
In Israel’s sights
UNRWA’s mission was to help displaced Palestinians until they could return home, something Israel had denied generations of Palestinians.
Israel has also decided to attack UNRWA. The UN agency is today threatened due to the removal of some of its funding and the desire, according to the newspapers, of Israel and the United States, to end its mandate.
Since the Israeli government accused the organization of having links to those responsible for attacks carried out by the Al-Qassam Brigades and other armed Palestinian fighters in southern Israel on October 7, many countries and donors – which provide more than 80% of UNRW funding
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