UNRWA struggles to deliver as poverty rises in Gaza
UNRWA has again cut or halted food aid to thousands of Palestinians as it struggles to keep up with rising poverty rates due to the Israeli-Egyptian siege on Gaza and crisis situations elsewhere.
GAZA CITY — "Please note that starting in April 2014, your status will change from 'absolute poverty' to 'not poor.'" If you received this message, you might think that you had struck it rich and won the lottery. After, however, identifying the sender — the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) — and then heading to the nearest UNRWA office, you would find that it really means that the food aid UNWRA had been providing you is about to stop, because in its eyes, you are now "not poor."
This is what happened to Mohammed Jaber, 44, a resident of the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza who must support six children in addition to his wife. His salary from the Palestinian Authority (PA) was cut off in 2007.
"I received this message on Jan. 16, 2014, at nine in the morning. At first I thought it was a positive thing, but when I went to the [UNRWA] service office in our camp, I found that they would be cutting our food aid in April of this year," Jaber told Al-Monitor.
He shared that when he stopped getting his PA salary in 2007, he began receiving extra food aid, or what is known as a "yellow coupon." Two years ago, however, this was reduced to a "normal coupon." Now even this aid will stop.
