Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September/October 2007, page 49

Human Rights

UNRWA Representative Saahir Lone Describes Emergency in Gaza

	Gaza is suffering under a “closure regime,” according to Saahir Lone, senior liaison officer at UNRWA (Staff photo S. Rhodin).

THE JERUSALEM FUND in Washington, DC hosted a June 26 discussion with Saahir Lone, senior liaison officer at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Representative Office to the United Nations in New York. Lone discussed UNRWA’s concerns regarding the economic and humanitarian deterioration in the Gaza Strip since the second intifada, specifically during the fighting in June between Fatah and Hamas. He described UNRWA’s work in trying to relieve the extremely difficult situation in the region, and the difficulties the agency has faced in implementing its work, which resulted in a temporary suspension of its operations during the June violence.

Lone used the term “closure regime” to describe the major impediment facing the Palestinian economy and the agency’s work in Gaza. “Gaza is dependent on a limited, small number of crossings for its access to the outside world,” he elaborated, “and those crossings are controlled on one side by Israel, including Rafah.”

As a result, he noted, a number of import and export benchmarks included in the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA) have not been met. For example, Lone said, in 2006, against a benchmark of about 400 that had been agreed upon in the AMA, only 17 trucks per day were allowed through; “that’s 4 percent of the target.” This statistic rose to 32 trucks per day, he added, but continues to be “woefully short of what Gaza’s economy needs.”

Palestinians’ inability to import and export their goods has caused serious economic strife for the West Bank and Gaza. In 2003, Lone stated, “the losses to the Palestinian economy exceeded in proportional terms the losses to the U.S. economy during the Great Depression.”

These losses have had serious economic consequences for the region, he continued, including capital flight and an increasing number (88 percent, according to the International Labor Organization) of Palestinians in Gaza living under the income poverty line. According to Lone, the Palestinian per capita income has shrunk 40 percent since 1999.

Lone also reported on the social consequences of the “closure regime,” including “the weakening of the Palestinian Authority schools,” “dependence on international aid,” and what he called “deskilling.” “We have trouble getting staff out of Gaza for training in other parts of the areas where we operate, or abroad,” he lamented. For Palestinians, he noted, the “closure regime creates a sense of isolation from the rest of the world” resulting in “despair and desperation.”

UNRWA’s work is vital in alleviating the economic and social hardships related to the “closure regime,” according to Lone. Its “mandate is to help refugees,” he pointed out, but “in times of crisis and conflict, [UNRWA] expand[s] and provide[s] assistance, particularly emergency assistance to those who are not refugees” as well. The agency operates its own schools, hospitals and food distribution centers, and although it does so in a “very cost effective way,” Lone said, it has faced difficulties in reaching the full emergency appeal of $246 million; only $110 million of which has been received. Lone concluded by pleading to the international community to help meet the agency’s request.

—Sara Rhodin