Palestine Media Center – PMC
UNRWA appealed on Thursday to the international community for new funds to
build shelters for nearly 600 people left homeless by Israeli Occupation
Forces’ (IOF) demolition of Palestinian houses in the southern Gaza Strip
town of Rafah and criticized the building of Israel’s Apartheid Wall in
occupied east Jerusalem.
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) on Friday blew up a four-story six-apartment
building and home to 40 Palestinian family members in the northern West Bank
city of Nablus.
IOF also Thursday noon demolished the house of Radhi Mustafa Abu El-Rub
without prior notice in the northern West Bank village of Jalboon east of
Jenin, the Palestinian official news agency WAFA reported.
Also on Thursday they demolished the house of Jawad Abu el-Okla in the
northern West Bank village of Faro’on, south of Tulkarm.
Israel has demolished hundreds of houses in Rafah, near the Egyptian border,
in more than three years of the Intifada (uprising) against the 37-year old
Israeli occupation, saying the buildings gave cover to gunmen and weapons
smugglers.
At least 3,000 houses have been demolished since the Intifada erupted late in
September 2000. More than 10,000 houses were demolished since Israel occupied
the West Bank and Gaza Strip in June 1967.
The IOF routinely demolish Palestinian homes as a form of collective
punishment for the families of those who are suspected of being resistance
fighters against Israeli military occupation.
Condemning a week-long campaign of Israeli house demolitions in Gaza, the main
United Nations agency helping Palestine refugees appealed Thursday to the
international community for new funds to build shelters for nearly 600 people
left homeless in the town and refugee camp of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza
Strip.
“Any humanitarian looking at the sheer number of innocent civilians who have
lost their homes can only condemn Israel's house demolition policy as a hugely
disproportionate military response by an occupation army,” Peter Hansen,
Commissioner General of UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees
(UNRWA), said.
“The nearly 15,000 people whose homes and possessions have been ground into
the sand by Israel's bulldozers can hardly be blamed if they have come to
believe that they are the victims of collective punishment,” he added,
referring to the total number of those left homeless by Israeli demolitions in
Gaza since the start of the intifada more than three years ago.
“It is a policy that creates only hardship and bitterness, and in the end
can only undermine hope for future reconciliation and peace,” Hansen said.
The new demolitions by IOF military bulldozers, which have left 584 people
homeless since 16 January, have exacerbated the severe humanitarian crisis in
Rafah, where 9,970 people have now lost their homes since October 2000, UNRWA
said.
Before the latest round of demolitions UNRWA estimated that it would cost $30
million to re-house all the refugees who have lost their homes. The agency has
built 228 replacement shelters in Gaza and has a further 300 under
construction.
Apartheid Wall Affects Lives of Palestinians in Jerusalem
Separately UNRWA criticized Israel’s construction of its Apartheid Wall in
east Jerusalem.
The Wall will severely affect the lives of Palestinians in the Jerusalem area
in wide-ranging activities from education to health care to relief and social
services, according to the latest update of a report by the main United
Nations agency helping Palestine refugees.
The report by the UNRWA, the first in a series of regular updates, notes that
260 students out of a total 7,246 attending UNRWA schools, along with 86 out
of 263 teachers, will be affected in their daily movements by the barrier,
which will cut them off from places of learning.
“Beyond logistical problems of access, proximity of the schools to the
barrier site is likely to have a psychologically disruptive effect on all
students and teachers alike,” it says.
While it is so far impossible to determine how many of the more than 9,000
students attending schools run by the Palestinian Authority will be affected,
the number will most likely be considerable, the report says.
On health care, the report notes that the Wall will directly affect access to
UNRWA's Jerusalem Health Centre, which treated more than 27,000 patients in
the August-October period last year, about 60 per cent of whom came from the
city's outskirts and will therefore face delays and obstructions. Two other
health centres will be separated from surrounding areas.
“Also access of refugees to secondary and tertiary care in Jerusalem
hospitals will be severely hampered,” the report adds.
UNRWA says a "remarkable number" of Wall-related accidents involving
falling or slipping are being reported. “Apparently some grease is spread at
the bottom of the barrier, in order to discourage or damage 'infiltrators',”
the agency notes.
Noting that the Wall already built in northern areas of the West Bank is
“clearly resulting in impoverishment,” the report predicted a “similar
effect in the Jerusalem area.”
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague will be considering a
case concerning the “Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory” on February 23, upon the request of the UN
General Assembly.
The ICJ on Thursday granted a request by the Organization of the Islamic
Conference (OIC) to participate in the proceedings.