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Seize of Ada, Bethlehem, West Financial institution – Among the many kids enjoying on the road within the Aida refugee camp close to Bethlehem within the occupied West Financial institution is Ahmed Damasseh, 10, who goals of turning into a physician when he grows up.
He’s from the fourth era of the Damasseh household who’ve lived on this refugee camp since his ancestors fled the Nakba from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Deir Abban 75 years in the past as about 750,000 Palestinians have been pushed from their houses to construct the state. Of Israel.
The middle of Damasseh's dream is a United Nations company that gives for Palestinian refugees within the since-occupied Palestinian territory and neighboring nations.
The United Nations Aid and Works Company for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) offered the Damasse household with their first tent in Aida.
In line with Anwar Hammam, deputy head of the PLO's refugee affairs division, it’s chargeable for 702 colleges offering training to 500,000 kids and college students. It gives help to 400,000 folks dwelling within the Aida refugee camp.
On the coronary heart of UNRWA's mission is the concept it’ll assist displaced Palestinians till they will return to their houses, which Israel has denied to Palestinians for generations.
Israel has additionally set its sights on UNRWA, which is now on the breaking point as a result of funding withdrawals and extra information headlines indicating that Israel and america wish to finish its mandate.
After the Israeli authorities accused the group of getting hyperlinks to these chargeable for the October 7 assaults by the Qassam Brigades and different armed Palestinian fighters on southern Israel, a number of main donors and donor nations – which collectively account for greater than 80 p.c of UNRWA's present funds – withdrew their monetary assist.
Solely a handful of nations, together with Belgium, Norway, Eire and Saudi Arabia, have pledged to proceed funding. The most important donors, together with america, United Kingdom, Germany and Spain, have suspended funding solely.
Residents of Ada say their goals are on maintain for now and presumably gone eternally.
'Nobody else can handle the camps'
The Aida refugee camp, situated between Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Jerusalem, is residence to greater than 8,000 Palestinian refugees, two colleges for girls and boys and a clinic serving refugees from all camps close to Bethlehem.
For seven and a half a long time, 4 generations of the Damaseh household have been hoping to return to their native village.
Damasseh has relied on UNRWA for meals, well being care and training within the years because the Nakba. Now, they concern what’s going to occur to them if the company is compelled to stop all operations within the close to future, as they’ve warned may occur.
Ahmed's father, Mohammed, mentioned, “No Palestinian or worldwide entity is able to taking duty for the camps, neither in training nor in well being.” Like others in the neighborhood, he strongly believed that chopping off funding to UNRWA was half of a bigger conspiracy in opposition to the Palestinians.
“As refugees, we all know that there’s a main political plan to finish the existence of UNRWA whereas stopping the fitting of return. That is one thing we is not going to enable. My son, Ahmed, will examine in Aida Camp Faculty till we return to our native village,” he mentioned defiantly.
If UNRWA disappears, he mentioned, the dream of returning residence additionally disappears. As an alternative, it’s doubtless that these camps will likely be absorbed as cities below the broader Palestinian Authority.
Whereas Ahmed's father is especially involved about the way forward for his son's training – and what it means for his goals of finding out drugs – his grandmother, 70-year-old Halima Damseh, is anxious about well being providers.
Even earlier than the warfare in Gaza started final October, Mohammed mentioned, providers provided by UNRWA clinics have been falling brief, with solely medical remedy and prescriptions for power situations obtainable. If UNRWA can now not perform, it’ll additionally shut.
“The UNRWA clinic has stopped offering the medicines I would like, together with diabetes drugs,” his mom Halima advised Al Jazeera. So, my son buys it for about $100 a month.”
They feared that this might not be sustainable in the long term, particularly with the extreme financial disaster within the occupied West Financial institution attributable to the crackdown on the occupied Palestinian territories because the warfare started.
This crackdown has taken the type of quite a few roadblocks, raids on camps and cities all through the occupied West Financial institution, and strict curfews on residents. Employment has declined and costs have risen, whereas the Palestinian Authority struggles to pay public staff.
'Palestinians will take their stand'
Saeed al-Azha, head of the In style Committee for Providers in Aida, the PLO's refugee affairs division, reported that camps have been often raided, with latest incursions and arrests having elevated, worsening situations for Palestinian refugees. .
He warned that situations would worsen if funding for UNRWA operations was suspended.
“Palestinian refugees will combat in opposition to shedding UNRWA,” he mentioned. “They may take a stand in all 5 areas the place the company operates – Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, along with the occupied West Financial institution.
“UNRWA holds political significance as a witness to the Nakba and as a United Nations-mandated company that nobody desires to lose earlier than Palestinian refugees have the fitting to return to the houses from which they have been displaced in 1948 “
Adam Pollock, UNRWA's director of operations within the West Financial institution area, advised Al Jazeera that eradicating UNRWA and its providers could be “a recipe for elevated tensions, particularly on condition that youth make up greater than 30 p.c of the inhabitants within the camps”.