Aida, Bethlehem, occupied West Financial institution – Among the many kids taking part in on the road within the Aida refugee camp close to Bethlehem within the occupied West Financial institution is 10-year-old Ahmad Damaseh who desires of changing into a health care provider when he grows up.
He belongs to the fourth era of the Damaseh household to dwell on this refugee camp since his ancestors fled the Nakba from the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Deir Aban 75 years in the past as some 750,000 Palestinians have been pushed from their properties to make means for the creation of the state of Israel.
Central to Damaseh’s dream is a United Nations company that has supplied for Palestinian refugees in occupied Palestinian territory and neighbouring nations since then.
The UN Aid and Works Company for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) supplied the Damaseh household with their very first tent in Aida.
It’s answerable for 702 faculties offering training to 500,000 kids and college students, in accordance with Anwar Hammam, deputy head of the PLO’s Refugee Affairs Division. It supplies support to 400,000 individuals residing within the Aida refugee camp.
On the coronary heart of UNRWA’s mission is the concept that it might assist displaced Palestinians till they might return to their properties, one thing Israel has denied generations of Palestinians.
Israel has additionally set its sights on UNRWA, which is now on the breaking point as funding is withdrawn and extra information headlines suggest that Israel and the US wish to finish its mandate.
After the Israeli authorities accused the organisation of getting hyperlinks to these answerable for assaults by the Qassam Brigades and different armed Palestinian fighters on southern Israel on October 7, many giant donors and donor nations – who collectively present greater than 80 p.c of UNRWA’s funding – have withdrawn their monetary assist.
Solely a handful of nations, together with Belgium, Norway, Eire and Saudi Arabia, have pledged to proceed funding. The biggest donors, together with the US, United Kingdom, Germany and Spain, have suspended funding altogether.
For now, residents of Aida say, their desires are on maintain and probably gone ceaselessly.
‘Nobody else can handle the camps’
Aida refugee camp, situated between Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Jerusalem, is dwelling to greater than 8,000 Palestinian refugees, two faculties for girls and boys and a clinic serving refugees from all of the camps close to Bethlehem.
For seven-and-a-half many years, 4 generations of the Damaseh household have held onto the hope of returning to their unique village.
The Damasehs have relied on UNRWA for meals, healthcare and training by way of the years because the Nakba. Now, they’re terrified of what is going to turn into of them if the company is pressured to stop all operations within the close to future, because it has warned may occur.
“There isn’t a Palestinian or worldwide entity able to assuming the accountability for the camps, neither in training nor in well being,” mentioned Ahmad’s father, Muhammad. Like others in the neighborhood, he strongly believed the cessation of funding to UNRWA is an element of a bigger plot in opposition to Palestinians.
“As refugees, we all know there’s a main political plan to finish UNRWA’s existence, stopping the precise of return. That is one thing we won’t enable. My son, Ahmed, will research in Aida camp college till he returns to our unique village,” he added defiantly.
If UNRWA disappears, they mentioned, so does the dream of ever returning dwelling. As an alternative, it’s probably that these camps will likely be absorbed as cities below the broader Palestinian Authority.
Whereas Ahmad’s father is especially involved about the way forward for his son’s training – and what meaning for his desires to check drugs – his grandmother, 70-year-old Haleema Damaseh worries about healthcare companies.
Even earlier than the warfare in Gaza started final October, companies provided by UNRWA clinics had been shrinking, with solely medical therapy and prescriptions for persistent situations obtainable, mentioned Muhammad. Even that may cease if UNRWA can not function.
His mom, Haleema, instructed Al Jazeera, “The UNRWA clinic has stopped offering diabetes treatment, amongst others, which I want. So, my son buys it for almost $100 a month.”
She feared this may not be sustainable for the long run, particularly with the extreme economic crisis within the occupied West Financial institution which has taken maintain because of the crackdown on the occupied Palestinian territories because the warfare started.
This crackdown has taken the type of a number of roadblocks all through the occupied West Financial institution, raids on camps and cities and a strict curfew on residents. Employment has plummeted and costs have soared, whereas the Palestinian Authority is struggling to pay salaries to public employees.
‘Palestinians will take a stand’
Saeed al-Azha, the top of the Standard Committee for Providers in Aida, a part of the Refugee Affairs Division of the PLO, defined that the camps have been raided typically, with incursions and arrests growing lately, exacerbating situations for Palestinian refugees.
He warned that situations would solely deteriorate additional if funding to UNRWA operations have been suspended.
“Palestinian refugees will battle in opposition to shedding UNRWA,” he mentioned. “They’ll take a stand in all 5 areas the place the company works – Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, along with the occupied West Financial institution.
“UNRWA holds political significance as a witness to the Nakba and as an UN-mandated company that no Palestinian desires to lose earlier than refugees get their proper of return to their properties from which they have been displaced in 1948.”
UNRWA Operations Director within the West Financial institution Area Adam Pollock instructed Al Jazeera that the removing of UNRWA and its companies “can be a recipe for escalating tensions, particularly contemplating that the youth inhabitants within the camps exceeds 30 p.c”.