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UNRWA, a Lifeline for Palestinians amid Decades of Conflict

FILE - Palestinian children who fled with their parents from their houses in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, gather in the backyard of an UNRWA school, in Sidon, Lebanon, Sept. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)
FILE - Palestinian children who fled with their parents from their houses in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, gather in the backyard of an UNRWA school, in Sidon, Lebanon, Sept. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)
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UNRWA, a Lifeline for Palestinians amid Decades of Conflict

FILE - Palestinian children who fled with their parents from their houses in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, gather in the backyard of an UNRWA school, in Sidon, Lebanon, Sept. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)
FILE - Palestinian children who fled with their parents from their houses in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, gather in the backyard of an UNRWA school, in Sidon, Lebanon, Sept. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, whose operations in Israel were banned by the Israeli parliament on Monday, is seen by some as an "irreplaceable" humanitarian lifeline in Gaza, but as an accomplice of Hamas by others.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has for more than seven decades provided essential aid and assistance to Palestinian refugees, AFP reported.
The agency has also long been a lightening rod for harsh Israeli criticism, which has ramped up dramatically since the start of the war in Gaza, following Hamas's deadly October 7 attacks last year.
UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, has seen more than 220 of its staff killed in the war there -- even as it has faced dramatic funding cuts and calls for its dismantlement amid Israeli accusations that some of its workers took part in the October 7 attack.
Created in wake of war
UNRWA was established in December 1949 by the UN General Assembly in the wake of the first Arab-Israeli conflict following Israel's creation in May 1948.
The agency, which began its operations on May 1, 1950, was tasked with assisting some 750,000 Palestinians who had been expelled during the war.
It was supposed to be a short-term fix, but in the absence of a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, the General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA's mandate, most recently extending it until June 30, 2026.
Millions of refugees
The number of Palestinian refugees under its charge has meanwhile ballooned to nearly six million across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
Palestinian refugees are defined as "persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict".
Their descendents also have refugee status.
Operations
UNRWA is unique among UN organizations in its direct service delivery model, and is the main provider of basic public services, including education, healthcare, and social services for registered Palestinian refugees.
It employs more than 30,000 people, mainly Palestinian refugees and a small number of international staff.
The organization counts 58 official refugee camps and runs more than 700 schools for over 540,000 students.
It also runs 141 primary healthcare facilities, with nearly seven million patient visits each year, and provides emergency food and cash assistance to some 1.8 million people.
UNRWA in Gaza
In the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas since 2007, the humanitarian situation was already critical before the war between Israel and Hamas began last October, with more than 80 percent of the population living below the poverty line.
The territory, squeezed between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, counts eight camps and around 1.7 million refugees, the overwhelming majority of the population of 2.4 million, according to the UN.
The situation has spiraled into catastrophe following Hamas's deadly attack inside Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed more than 43,000 people, mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory's health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.
Two-thirds of buildings have been damaged and nearly the entire population of Gaza has been displaced, many of them multiple times, the UN says.
"In the midst of all the upheaval, UNRWA, more than ever, is indispensable. UNRWA, more than ever, is irreplaceable," UN chief Antonio Guterres has said.
UNRWA, which employs some 13,000 people in Gaza, has seen two-thirds of its facilities there damaged or destroyed.
Israeli criticism
Israel has long been harshly critical of UNRWA, alleging it is perpetuating the Palestinian refugee problem and that its schools use textbooks that promote hatred of Israel.
Since October 7, the criticism has ballooned, targeting UNRWA in Gaza especially.
In January, Israel accused a dozen of UNRWA's Gaza employees of involvement in the October 7 attack by Hamas.
A series of probes found some "neutrality related issues" at UNRWA, and determined that nine employees "may have been involved" in the October 7 attack, but found no evidence for Israel's chief allegations.
The agency, which traditionally has been funded almost exclusively through voluntary contributions from governments, was plunged into crisis as a string of nations halted their backing over Israel's allegations.
Most donors have since resumed funding.
The barrage of accusations has meanwhile continued, with Israel alleging UNRWA employs "hundreds of Hamas members and even military wing operatives" in Gaza.
Despite objections from the United States and warnings from the UN Security Council, Israeli lawmakers on Monday overwhelmingly passed a bill banning UNRWA from working in Israel and occupied east Jerusalem.

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Climate Change-Worsened Floods Wreak Havoc in Africa

People carry possessions on a pirogue over flood water flowing over a main road in Odobere on October 22, 2024. (AFP)
People carry possessions on a pirogue over flood water flowing over a main road in Odobere on October 22, 2024. (AFP)
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Climate Change-Worsened Floods Wreak Havoc in Africa

People carry possessions on a pirogue over flood water flowing over a main road in Odobere on October 22, 2024. (AFP)
People carry possessions on a pirogue over flood water flowing over a main road in Odobere on October 22, 2024. (AFP)

Every rainy season for the past 12 years, floods have swept through 67-year-old Idris Egbunu's house in central Nigeria.

It is always the same story -- the Niger River bursts its banks and the waters claim his home for weeks on end, until he can return and take stock of the damage.

The house then needs cleaning, repairs, fumigation and repainting, until the next rainy season.

Flooding is almost inevitable around Lokoja in Nigeria's Kogi state, where Africa's third-longest river meets its main tributary, the Benue.

But across vast areas of Africa, climate change has thrown weather patterns into disarray and made flooding much more severe, especially this year.

Devastating inundations are threatening the survival of millions of residents on the continent. Homes have been wrecked and crops ruined, jeopardizing regional food security.

Torrential rains and severe flooding have affected around 6.9 million people in West and Central Africa so far in 2024, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

- 'Very, very bad' -

Residents and officials around Lokoja said floods first became more severe in Kogi state in 2012 and have battered the area each year since.

In 2022, Nigeria's worst floods in a decade killed more than 500 people and displaced 1.4 million.

Sandra Musa, an emergency agency adviser to the Kogi state governor, believes this year's flooding has not yet reached the level seen in 2022, but warned it was "very, very bad".

"Usually at this time of year the water level drops, but here it's rising again," she told AFP, estimating that the floods have affected around two million people in the state.

Fatima Bilyaminu, a 31-year-old mother and shopkeeper, can only get to her house in the Adankolo district of Lokoja by boat as a result of the waters.

The swollen river rises almost to the windows, while water hyacinths float past the crumbling building.

"I lost everything. My bed, my cushioned chair, my wardrobe, my kitchen equipment," she told AFP.

With no money to rent a house elsewhere, she has little choice but to keep living in the small concrete building and repair it, flood after flood.

- Damage and displacement -

Africa is bearing the brunt of climate change, even though it only contributes around four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent report by the World Meteorological Organization.

This year is set to overtake 2023 as the world's hottest on record.

"This year has been unusual in terms of the amount of rainfall, with many extreme events, which is one of the signs of climate change," said Aida Diongue-Niang from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In the Sahel region bordering the Sahara desert, the volume, intensity and duration of rainfall was "unprecedented," according to Amadou Diakite from the Mali Meteo weather service.

In Niger, some regions recorded up to 200 percent more rain than in previous years, the national meteorological service said. The waters put at risk the historic city center of Agadez, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the desert north.

Over the border in Chad, torrential rains since July have killed at least 576 people and affected 1.9 million, more than 10 percent of the population, according to a report published by the OCHA.

In neighboring Cameroon, the UN body said torrential rains had destroyed more than 56,000 homes and flooded tens of thousands of hectares of crops.

Floodwaters swept through the capital Conakry in Guinea, while floods in Monrovia reignited debates over building another city to serve as Liberia's capital.

Entire districts of Mali's capital Bamako were submerged, leaving waste and liquid from septic tanks seeping across the streets.

In August, downpours caused the roof of the centuries-old Tomb of Askia in the Malian city of Gao to collapse.

Several countries have postponed the start of the school year as a result of the floods.

- 'Keep getting worse' -

"It used to be a decadal cycle of flooding, and we're now into a yearly cycle," said Clair Barnes, a researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.

"This is only going to keep getting worse if we keep burning fossil fuels," she said.

As global temperatures rise, extreme weather events will increase in frequency and intensity, scientists warn.

Experts estimate that by 2030, up to 118 million Africans already living in poverty will be exposed to drought, floods and intense heat.

Building along riverbanks also poses a risk, Youssouf Sane of Senegal's meteorology agency said, urging governments to think about the relationship between climate change and urbanization.

But the IPCC's Diongue-Niang said the only way to tackle extreme weather was to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

"That doesn't fall to the region -- it falls to the whole of humanity," she said.