Karen Abu Zayd is commissioner general of UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East). Her job is to make sure that relief and human development are accessible to Palestinians under occupation, in Gaza, the West Bank and refugee camps scattered in countries neighbouring the occupied Palestinian territories. This mission is met through providing education, healthcare, social services and emergency aid to over 4.6 million refugees living in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic.
This is a multi-million dollar operation. It is above all, however, an endeavour that requires close coordination with many bodies, some Palestinian, other Israeli, and many more that are regional or international. This week, Abu Zayd must have been monitoring carefully every word emerging from the new right-wing Israeli government chaired by Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu. For Abu Zayd, Netanyahu's intentions towards the Palestinian people under occupation means a lot. They decide to a great extent whether her tough job will get tougher still.
"We are waiting to see. What we need is for the crossings to be opened and for construction material to be let into Gaza. What we need is for roadblocks to be removed in the West Bank so that relief material can get through," Abu Zayd told Al-Ahram Weekly on the fringes of her participation in the Doha Arab summit last week in Qatar.
Having worked patiently with the outgoing Israeli government of Ehud Olmert -- ostensibly an easier going partner than the current Israeli coalition -- Abu Zayd knows well that when the push comes to shove any Israeli government can choose to shrug off UNRWA's appeals and requests and get away with its indifference. "We worked with Kadima and Labour, and we had worked with Likud before, but now we are going to see how things will move," she said.
As a UN official, and as someone who needs the help and facilitation of the Israeli government, Abu Zayd keeps her opinions to herself on the personalities now involved, sharing only a wish that the new Israeli government would "cooperate with UNRWA" despite the expected "difficulties" she encountered with previous Israeli governments.
In effect, Abu Zayd is trying to see the glass half-full. "Netanyahu seems interested in economic cooperation with the Palestinians," she stated in a self-convincing tone. And as such, she added -- though with unmistakable hesitation -- he would be likely to facilitate the improvement of the economic situation in Gaza and the West Bank.
New Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman "sounds worrying" for the commissioner general, but she is not willing to cast a firm negative on future cooperation between UNRWA and the Israeli Foreign Ministry under Lieberman. "We will be working with the same people in the ministry and we hope they will remain as helpful," she said.
For Abu Zayd the issue is not about this or that Israeli government. It is rather about an international position -- with an Arab stance at the core of it -- that could secure the facilitation of UNRWA's job. UNRWA, Abu Zayd argued, was promised a considerably generous budget for its work, especially in Gaza after the recent Israeli war. However, if the crossings which link Israel to Gaza (and those linking Gaza to Egyptian territories) remain blocked to the passage of goods there is not much use for the money that has been pledged for the reconstruction of Gaza.
"If you have the money to buy construction material and if you cannot get this material inside Gaza then what use is this money if it cannot get citizens made homeless by the destruction of their houses during the war a roof over their heads?" Abu Zayd asked.
In the Arab summit, Abu Zayd held meetings with several senior Arab officials. The objective of her meetings was not just to get more money earmarked for the budget of UNRWA, which remains short despite the generosity of some donors. It was also to get her Arab interlocutors to contemplate taking the action necessary to get Israel to open its crossings so that assistance could flow promptly into the devastated and poverty wracked Strip. Without Arab pressure and international support the crossings would be kept closed, amplifying to impossible levels the difficulties Gazans have to endure.
When Abu Zayd told Arab officials last week that they need to provide financial assistance to cover a $200 million shortfall in a recovery project that UNRWA budgets at $345 million, she was not only making reference to the situation on the ground in Gaza. In the West Bank, "where the difficulties faced by people seem at times to be forgotten", there are also needs to be met. "Now is a special moment for more financial and political determination on the side of Arab countries to reach out to Palestinians in Gaza as well as in the West Bank," she said.
Abu Zayd is not the only voice calling for help from the international community. John Ging, UNRWA director of operations in Gaza, recently asked UN officials to uphold the rule of law more and meet the needs of human rights protection. Addressing a press conference in New York following UN meetings, Ging argued that neither Israelis nor Palestinians "should be allowed to claim that the illegal acts of the opponent legalise an illegal act in response." He noted that this applies to collective punishment in the form of the Israeli siege and Hamas's rocket fire.
At least 1,300 Palestinians were killed and some 5,300 injured in the Israeli offensive launched in the final days of 2008 and lasting some 22-days, ostensibly with the aim of ending rocket attacks by Hamas and other groups. The heavy bombardment and fighting also reduced homes, schools, hospitals and marketplaces to rubble.
Ging also warned in New York that, "Until we can get the humanitarian assistance in, in an unfettered way, we can't begin the process of recovery and reconstruction."
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