The ten or so patients, looking worried, grouped in the waiting room seem to share this uncertainty. Doctor Wafa Aqel has been employed by UNRWA since July 2024 to welcome children, pregnant women, and cases of chronic illnesses arriving from towns and countryside throughout the occupied West Bank. Around 100 to 200 patients come here daily to seek medical help, she estimates. “The majority of them have serious financial difficulties, they are dependent on us, and that is why all our treatments are free.explains the young doctor. They have been coming to me these last few days asking me what will happen if the center disappears… Unfortunately, I have no answer to give them“.
Israel’s ban on UNRWA causes international outcry
Doubly precarious youth
For the approximately 16,500 Palestinian refugees in the Kalandia camp, the closure of UNRWA infrastructure would have immediate and dramatic consequences. Health distress for medical center patients; idleness for the young adolescents who come to train at the organization’s professional center, whose buildings resembling university campuses extend a little further away.
Opened in 1993 for young, precarious Palestinians with manual professions, it is the oldest institution of its kind affiliated with the organization. The establishment received 600 applications at the start of the year but, due to a lack of resources to build new infrastructure, adjusted its responses according to its capacities. Inside, there are no desks or boards. We are moving from an electrical engineering and construction workshop to a garage dedicated to automobile mechanics. This year, 350 young people are studying within these walls. Small groups dressed in midnight blue blouses are busy learning different metal cutting techniques, one of the 16 training courses offered by the center. Since the ban formulated by the Israeli Parliament, these adolescents fear every day of finding the door closed to their place of study.
Director Baha Awad does not intend to let them down: “Many students and their parents have come to me to ask if we are going to close before the end of the year in June 2025… If they cannot continue their education here, there is the risk that they will harm themselveshe laments. These are young people who do not have the resources to pursue a university course, so their only chance of entering the job market lies with our teachers.”. During its last years of activity, the center achieved an 85% hiring rate upon completion of training.
48,000 schoolchildren in the West Bank and Gaza
At Kalandia Girls’ Elementary School, staff have no more answers for worried parents. Ibrahim Addahle has been looking after the educational arm of the organization for 22 years:” In total, we operate 96 schools across the West Bank, serving 48,000 students, most of whom live in refugee camps.“, he explains.
At his side, Jonathan Fowley, spokesperson for the organization, admits wanting “continue at all costs” while waiting for the concrete implementation of laws officially prohibiting the work of UNRWA in the West Bank and Gaza. For him, rushing these closures would be counterproductive and above all dangerous for the thousands of young Palestinians educated thanks to the United Nations. He still says he hopes for a reversal of this decision: “We are not in a perspective of anticipating the unacceptable. These Knesset laws go completely against international law, rulings issued by the International Court of Justice, and calls from countries have increased for Israel not to implement these laws.”. According to international law, a member country prohibiting the action of a United Nations agency has a duty to propose an alternative to the action of the targeted body. “We don’t hear anything of this, and it’s very worrying“, judges Mr. Fowley again.
In addition to the decision of the Israeli Parliament, UNRWA is also facing a financial crisis since the American decision, followed by other countries, to suspend its funding until March 2025. While several states have since resumed their donations, the The agency’s abandonment of support by the United States leaves a gaping hole in its operating budget. “Fortunately, countries like Ireland, Norway, Spain have increased the amount of their aid and we can count on new donors like Iraq, which recently paid 25 million dollars.”nuance the spokesperson. With the reinforcement of private actors, the organization hopes to be able to continue to finance its activities, even reduced, in the territory. Even though the organization’s offices in Nur Shams, in the north of the occupied West Bank, were razed by Israeli bulldozers last October.
