Palestinians are suffering from hunger, poverty, conflict and the global pandemic.
Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, explained, “People are struggling in their daily lives to make ends meet. People are struggling daily to ensure one meal for their family. No one should be made to feel so desperate.”
Gwyn Lewis, Director of UNRWA Operations in the West Bank, highlighted the grave socio-economic issues Palestinians are facing.
“With the pandemic, we’ve seen quite a dramatic impact on the economy — 40 percent households on the West Bank kept seeing their income decline by more than half [and] unemployment increased in the camps, by as high as 23 percent. In Gaza, unemployment has hit 49 percent which is very, very dramatic.”
Biden has restored a higher than $200 million aid package to Palestine that former president Donald Trump had revoked.
Khaled Elgindy, a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute (MEI), said he doesn’t believe the funding will do enough, that the aid is “rather modest and is unlikely to have a significant impact on the Palestinian economy.”
Yara M. Asi, a post-doctoral scholar at the University of Central Florida, pointed out, “I hope the lesson learned from this is that occupation is not sustainable. Israel cannot choose to exercise both maximum control over Palestinian life while assuming no responsibility for it, and limiting the ability of the Palestinian Authority to handle it themselves.”
2 comments:
The Pandemic and Palestine
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/09/the-us-media-is-touting-israels-covid-recovery-but-occupied-palestinians-are-left-out
A study released today by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) and the Palestinian Water Authority suggests that only four percent of households in the Gaza Strip have access to safely managed water, compared with 39.5 percent in the rest of Palestine.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/pcbs-only-4-of-households-in-gaza-have-access-to-safe-water/
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