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Gaza Situation Report 140 (/) Donate (/donate) Home (/) » Newsroom (/newsroom) » Emergency Reports (http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/emergency- reports) » Gaza situation report 140 Press Releases (/newsroom/press-releases) Features (/newsroom/features) Official Statements (/newsroom/official-statements) Emergency Reports Press Contacts (/newsroom/press-contacts) GAZA SITUATION REPORT 140 22 April 2016 0 0 12 April – 19 April | Issue 140 UNRWA Gaza organized a Colour Festival on 16 April in the courtyard of the Gaza Vocational Training Centre, to help address the psychosocial needs of UNRWA students through recreational and creative activities. Fifty students and their parents from six UNRWA schools participated in the Festival, including participation in different family drawing activities. UNRWA teachers and counsellors from the Agency’s Community Mental Health Programme (CMHP) were also present. In addition to offering the opportunity for supervised recreational activities for students in a safe and secure place, the activities aimed at enhancing the relationship between children and their parents, as well as between the families, school and local community. In the Gaza Strip, due to limited space, a high population density (http://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/file/publications/gaza/Gaza%20in%202020.pdf), poverty and the unparalleled destruction during the 2014 conflict, playgrounds or other safe spaces for children to play are rare. The summer 2014 hostilities had a devastating psychosocial impact on individuals and communities in Gaza, adding to the effect already felt from years of blockade and cycles of conflict. The shock of losing a home and family members and returning to neighborhoods to find them destroyed can contribute to eroding any sense of certainty and hope in the future. Children exposed to violence often express a loss of trust in others. UNRWA maintains a network of 250 psychosocial counsellors in UNRWA schools as well as 23 counsellors and 5 legal advisors at health centres. The CMHP programme has a particular focus on school students and psychosocial counsellors, where refugee children receive individual and group counselling, including those who drop out of school. In light of the Ad-hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC) (http://www.lacs.ps/article.aspx?id=6) meeting for development assistance to the Palestinian people, on 19 April in Brussels, Belgium, the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) published a report (http://www.unsco.org/Documents/Special/UNSCO%20report%20to%20AHLC%20- %2014%20April%202016.pdf) to the AHLC. The AHLC is a 15-member committee that serves as the principal policy-level coordination mechanism for development assistance to the Palestinian people. It is chaired by Norway and co-sponsored by the US and the EU; the UN participated together with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The AHLC seeks to promote dialogue between donors, the Palestinian Authority and the Government of Israel. United Nations’ Humanitarian Coordinator in the occupied Palestinian territory, Mr. Robert Piper, will attend the meeting. In the report, UNSCO focuses particularly on the ongoing internal displacement, the energy and water crisis, as well as high unemployment rates in Gaza. While 75,000 persons remain internally displaced since the ceasefire to the 2014 conflict and are waiting for the rehabilitation of their homes, the report also states that progress has been made on the reconstruction of Gaza. More than 90 per cent of health and education facilities damaged or destroyed during the conflict in 2014 have been repaired, according to UNSCO, and repair of the water infrastructure and housing repairs has seen progress. However, the report also raises awareness on the fact that the reconstruction of houses that have been rendered uninhabitable during the 2014 conflict has been slower due to structural barriers as well as funding shortfalls. The report further states that high unemployment rates and a lack of a political horizon risk fuelling radicalization of youth and creating an even more unstable situation. The humanitarian situation in Gaza is exacerbated by chronic shortages of water and energy as the UN has warned in 2012 in its Gaza 2020 report (http://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/file/publications/gaza/Gaza%20in%202020.pdf). “Gaza’s coastal aquifer will become saline this year and contamination has rendered Gaza’s groundwater unusable,” the UNSCO report states. Gaza’s water and energy crises are interrelated; until natural gas can be delivered to Gaza’s power plant, additional energy needs to be imported from Israel, the report goes on to say. There is also a need for an immediate, substantial increase of fresh water supply from Israel, until long term solutions, such as the full construction and operation of desalination plants, can be implemented, the report urges. To gain a first-hand overview of the impact of German funding on the UNRWA shelter self-help repair and reconstruction programme, on 14 April a delegation from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) visited the Gaza Strip. The delegation was briefed on the self-help shelter repair and reconstruction programme by Mr. Muin Muqat, the Acting Deputy Chief Infrastructure and Camp Improvement Programme – Design and Urban Planning, and visited a family in Shujjaiya in eastern Gaza city who had reconstructed their totally destroyed home with support from UNRWA using funds received from BMZ through KfW. On the same day, the delegation met with Deputy Director of UNRWA Operations in Gaza, Mr. David de Bold, in Jerusalem for a broader discussion on the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the UNRWA response. To express support for the work of the America-MidEast Educational Training Services (AMIDEAST (http://www.amideast.org/west-bank-gaza)) language school in Gaza, and to congratulate successful students, the Director of UNRWA Operations in Gaza, Mr. Bo Schack, participated in the graduation ceremony for 200 ‘access students’ on 14 April in Gaza city. All were high- achieving students from UNRWA schools and had successfully passed the AMIDEAST Access Programme. The Access Programme is not only about English language skills, but also about being introduced to other cultures and appreciating and fostering community engagement’s values of peace and tolerance. In his remarks during the ceremony, Mr. Schack mentioned that for years, Gaza students have been deprived of many of the rights that their peers in other countries across the world enjoy, yet still their resilience and determination to cope and hope for the better has been the spark that has motivated young boys and girls to work hard and get results. In addition to the UNRWA Director, Ambassador Theodore H. Kattouf, the President of AMIDEAST, and the U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem Mr. Donald A. Blome spoke at the event, via video conference. The graduation ceremony included a theatre segment, musical shows and a Palestinian dabka dance performance. AMIDEAST is committed to strengthening Palestinian human resources and institutions through expanded education and training services, technical assistance, and scholarship and grant programmes. As part of his regular outreach activities to the Gaza community, the Director of UNRWA Operations in Gaza, Mr. Bo Schack, engaged with UNRWA front line staff and community groups in the Gaza Middle Area during the reporting week. Accompanied by the Chief of the Middle Area, Mr. Mohammed Reyati and his Deputy Mr. Sami Salhi, the Director paid a visit to the Relief and Social Services Programme (RSSP) office in Nuseirat camp to receive a briefing from RSSP staff on the new UNRWA food baskets which were for the first time distributed in the second annual food distribution round that began on 10 April and will run until June. Mr. Schack also visited nearby Deir El Balah to learn more about the Deir El Balah Camp Improvement Project (DEBCIP) through a briefing by the UNRWA DEBCIP team. The camp improvement project had been announced in a town hall meeting in Deir El Balah in April 2015, and 80 per cent of the first phase – the participatory planning phase – is now complete. The outcome of phase one will be a final urban master plan, and action plan and a report. The Director continued his field visit in the UNRWA-supported Deir El Balah Rehabilitation Centre to learn more about the activities implemented there, such as education services for deaf students, physiotherapy for persons with disabilities, audio diagnosis services, and a radio station and bakery operated by persons with disabilities. The Director also visited Palestine University located in Al Zahra city, where he met with the board of directors and the president of the university, as well as visiting the law school and law clinic. Mr. Schack also engaged with youth during the visit, through attending an open discussion session with university students. Child Protection is central to the service provision of UNRWA in the areas of health, education, and relief and social services, with more than 30,000 staff Agency-wide, approximately 12,500 of whom are employed through Gaza Field Office. In April, the Agency finalised its first child protection framework, building on ongoing UNRWA work. UNRWA defines child protection as “preventing and responding to violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect against Palestine refugee children, and encouraging their well-being and development.” This builds upon the Agency’s ‘duty of care’ to ensure that it does not, through its own actions, cause harm to children (also known as safeguarding children). The Agency has direct contact with more than 2.5 million children across its five fields of operation, including Gaza. This is a remarkable breadth of work with nurses, doctors, teachers, principals, social workers, and others who enrich the lives of Palestine refugee children, and have contact with children and their families on a daily basis. The Agency recognizes the need to provide child-sensitive service and programme delivery.
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