IMEU Institute for Middle East Understanding
UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA has only received funding to reconstruct 200 of the 9,061 houses destroyed in Gaza, a report released Thursday said. While some 60,000 Palestine refugee families have been able to complete the repair of their damaged homes with assistance provided through UNRWA, the majority of funding pledged by the international community for reconstruction following the most recent war in Gaza has not materialized, similar to promises made after previous wars.
on April 9, 2015
Fact Sheets
The IMEU offers the following fact sheet on the plight of Palestinian refugees and Syrians living in the Yarmouk refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus, which has been overrun by fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) over the past week.
on April 7, 2015
Hisham has spent his 23 years in Aida refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. He lives there with his parents, and has watched all but one of his seven siblings grow up, marry and make their own lives and homes. Living in a camp run by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, Hisham and his family receive basic assistance: a monthly food subsidy, education and medical services.
on March 10, 2015
About 18,000 Palestinians are currently trapped in the besieged al-Yarmouk refugee camp in the south neighborhood of Damascus, with no sufficient food supplies and heating sources, according to the UNRWA. The international agency said it was alarmed and concerned by the grave deterioration in the humanitarian situation in Yarmouk, caused by a recent upsurge of armed conflict in the area.
on February 19, 2015
Tens of thousands of Palestinians are still living without adequate shelter more than five months after the end of Israel’s attack on Gaza last summer. The assault left more than 100,000 homes either fully or partially damaged. Many schools, hospitals and water facilities remain in ruins.
on February 9, 2015
Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai announced a donation of $50,000 for the reconstruction of Gaza’s schools. That was in October, in the wake of Israel’s summer assault that affected some 113,500 homes in addition to schools, public buildings, hospitals, utilities and other essential infrastructure. As part of an investigation into Palestine’s broken aid system, I set about tracking down where Malala’s money is.
on December 16, 2014
To mark the climax of the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, an iconic image from the newly digitized photo archives of the UN agency tasked with assisting Palestinian refugees throughout the Middle East was projected yesterday onto buildings in eight cities around the world, including the Organization’s iconic Headquarters complex in New York.
on December 4, 2014
“Crowded classrooms and limited facilities do not dim this girl’s enthusiasm for learning, something shared by all her classmates at the UNRWA girls school, Qabr Essit camp, Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic” — thus reads the official caption to a 1983 image of a young girl at a school for Palestinian refugees in Syria. This photograph now forms the centerpiece of the UN’s International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
on December 1, 2014
There is still not an effective or united Palestinian government in place in Gaza and unless stability is achieved rapidly, another conflict will engulf the territory, a senior United Nations official said on Tuesday. Robert Turner, director of operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, said the extent of damage and homelessness after the July-August war was worse than first thought.
on November 4, 2014