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UNRWA employees slam delay of salaries

Employees of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees have staged a sit-in protest in the Gaza Strip to demand their full salaries.

Ashraf Shannon
Press TV, Gaza

UNRWA employees went on partial labor strike to slam the agency’s failure to pay their salaries.

UNRWA has announced that workers would only receive part of their salaries for November and December due to budget deficits.

The UN agency provides education, health and welfare services to millions of Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem al-Quds ,the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

More than 1.3 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip and rely on UNRWA aid to survive.

With some 13,000 people on staff, UNRWA is the main employer, after local authorities, in the blockaded Gaza Strip, which is home to about two million people.

UNRWA is suffering from a huge budget deficit that has been forced it to cut back its services to Palestinian refugees in recent years including the provision of urgent relief in emergencies.

The Israeli regime has been campaigning to defund the UN agency in an attempt to end the refugees’ right of return.

The crisis worsened after US president Donald Trump decided to cancel funding to UNRWA in 2018.

UNRWA is a United Nations agency established by the General Assembly decades ago and mandated to provide assistance and protection to Palestine refugees across West Asia.

According to UNRWA there are over five million registered Palestinian refugees.

The plight of Palestinian refugees began in 1948 upon the creation of the Israeli regime on occupied Palestinian land.

Palestinian refugees say that UNRWA cuts will only deepen their suffering after more than seven decades of displacement.


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