UNRWA
About
- The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a United Nations agency established by the General Assembly in 1949.
- It is mandated to provide aid to about 700,000 Palestinians who were forced to leave their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
- The UN agency operates in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as well as Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan — countries where the refugees took shelter after their expulsion.
- UNRWA runs education, health, relief and social services, microfinance and emergency assistance programmes inside and outside refugee camps based in the aforementioned areas.
- UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions by donor states. It also gets a limited subsidy from the UN.
- UNRWA was initially created as a temporary agency. However, in the absence of a solution to the Palestine refugee problem, the General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA’s mandate.