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SvennoJ 2 days ago
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Long-term support for Gaza critical: UN

The UN says hundreds of thousands of displaced families are returning to northern Gaza, walking for hours through rubble to find what is left of their homes and reunite with loved ones.

UNRWA, the agency for Palestinian refugees, provides “life-saving aid”, which is central to the long-term support that the enclave requires after most of its infrastructure was destroyed by the Israeli military.

Israel plans to ban UNRWA in a bid to dismantle it, with the agency maintaining that only a sovereign Palestinian state could replace its work.


‘Unacceptable’: Spokesman slams Israel’s decision to halt UNRWA’s operations

Tens of thousands of people in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem are set to lose education, healthcare and other services provided by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

An Israeli ban on the organisation takes effect on Thursday.

“It’s an unacceptable decision,” said Jonathan Fowler, a spokesperson for UNRWA, was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. “The people that we serve… we are not able to tell them what is going to happen to our services as of the end of this week,” Fowler also said.

UNRWA has for decades run schools and clinics in the occupied East Jerusalem, the eastern part of the city that Israel has occupied since a 1967 war, for tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees who have no nationality.

Israel has not announced provisions to replace UNRWA’s activities.


North Gaza needs at least 120,000 tents to accommodate returnees

As we’ve been reporting all day, roughly 300,000 Palestinians returned to north Gaza today after Israeli troops opened the Netzarim Corridor, which has cut the Strip in half for most of the war.

An official from the Gaza Government Media Office told Al Jazeera that at least 120,000 tents are needed to shelter those displaced people who returned to destroyed homes.

Here are a few of his other comments:

  • The convoys of cars returning to the north stretch for hundreds of metres.
  • There is an operations room dedicated to following up on the conditions of the displaced. We heard appeals from stranded citizens who did not complete their return journey.
  • More than 33 camps have been set up to accommodate the displaced.
  • In the past few days, we have prepared about 50 shelters, prepared the land and dug wells.