UNRWA Headquarters Gaza Department of External Relations Telephone: + 972 8 677 7720 Fax: + 972 677 7698 email: ero@unrwa.org website: www.unrwa.org

UNRWA Emergency Appeal 2002 Progress Report

Commissioner-General Peter Hansen surveying damage, Jenin refugee camp, West Bank 15 Fifteenth progress report covering March and April 2002 Emergency Appeal

This is the fifteenth progress report in UNRWA’s emergency appeal series, covering emergency activities in March and April 2002.

During March and April 2002, humanitarian conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip plunged to levels unprecedented since the start of the Intifada.

An Israeli military offensive in early March, then another from the end of March into April, led to mounting casualties, loss of life, massive damage to property and infrastructure, and allegations of abuse of humanitarian law.

UNRWA operations continued in the Gaza Strip despite closures that hampered the movement of staff and supplies, but were severely affected in the West Bank, where under hazardous conditions UNRWA operations were focused on providing the most urgent humanitarian assistance to the communities the Agency was able to reach.

Attacks on Israelis by Palestinian militants continued, including suicide bombings, causing loss of life among Israeli civilians as well as military forces both inside Israel and within the occupied Palestinian Territory.

Events in March

The Israeli military offensive in the West Bank that began at the end of February widened in March. Israeli soldiers were still occupying the Balata refugee camp at Nablus, when on 1 March the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) launched an assault on the Jenin refugee camp (population 13,875) and then on 7 March the Nur Shams (7,972) and Tulkarm (15,760) refugee camps.

On 7 March an UNRWA staff member was killed after being struck in the back by a single bullet that penetrated his heart. He was the first UNRWA employee killed in the 18-month-old Intifada. Kamal Hamdan was riding in an ambulance with medical personnel on the return trip from a hospital to the Tulkarm refugee camp. He was 40 years old and the father of five.

The following day, in the West Bank Israeli troops moved against the Aida (population 4,014) and Dheisheh (10,611) camps in the vicinity of Bethlehem, and on 12 March against Am’ari camp (7,855) on the outskirts of Ramallah. Israeli forces occupied the city of Ramallah, imposing curfews upon the population.

In the course of their actions, IDF troops took up positions in UNRWA schools in four refugee camps. In three camps, Am’ari, Tulkarm and Dheisheh, they used the schools as detention centres, where Palestinian males

UNRWA Emergency Appeal Fifteenth Progress Report: March and April 2002 Page 1 of 14 between the ages of 13 and 50 were rounded up for interrogation, handcuffed and blindfolded. Approximately 50 refugees were killed and 274 others were injured in the Balata and Jenin camps in the first days of the offensive. There was widespread damage to both private property and to infrastructure.

The Gaza Strip was also the scene of a series of military actions during the first half of March. Israeli forces attacked Palestinian Authority facilities and other targets by land, sea and air. One of the heaviest attacks took place on the night of 11/12 March, when Israeli armoured forces surrounded and attacked targets in Jabalya refugee camp, north of Gaza City. In the armed clashes that followed, 16 Palestinians were killed and 20 injured, and the area was plunged into darkness after gunfire struck an electricity transformer.

On 14 March US special envoy Anthony In a press release on 21 March, UNRWA Zinni arrived in the region as part of the published its estimate that IDF incursions into efforts to stem the violence, and on 18 refugee camps and the bombing of Gaza City March US Vice President Cheney arrived during March would cost the Agency USD 3.8 for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel million, to repair damage done to UN Sharon. In the context of US installations, refugee shelters and camp interventions, and a diplomatic backdrop that included a regional peace initiative infrastructure. The estimate did not include proposed by Saudi Arabia, there was a funds needed for the future social and health lull in hostilities. On 19 March the Israeli needs of a severely traumatised population. army announced that its troops had pulled out of Bethlehem, ending what 141 refugee homes had been destroyed, had been until then Israel's largest while a further 1,800 suffered lesser damage. offensive against Palestinian areas in the 22 UNRWA schools, four UNRWA health West Bank for 35 years. Events were clinics, two UNRWA ambulances and four nevertheless to worsen at the end of the camp service centres had also been month. damaged.

On 26 March, on the eve of an Arab League summit that was to debate the Saudi peace initiative in Beirut, Lebanon, the Palestinian leadership announced that President Yasser Arafat, confined for over three months to his compound in Ramallah by Israeli forces, would not attend for fear that Israel would prevent his return. A period of relative calm came to an end the following evening, at the start of the Jewish Passover, when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated a bomb at a restaurant in Netanya, killing 15 Israelis and injuring some 100 others.

Events in April

The military offensive that Israel unleashed in the West Bank on 29 March was unprecedented in its severity. The offensive, which Israel called "Operation Defensive Shield," began with a bombardment of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah. The city of Ramallah was placed under curfew, and residents remained indoors for days at a time with neither water nor electricity. They could venture out only when the curfew was lifted for a few hours. The Palestinian leader announced he would rather die than surrender, while Israel announced the mobilisation of 20,000 military reservists for what Prime Minister Sharon reportedly described as a long and complicated war that knew no borders.

In the days that followed, Israeli forces systematically entered and occupied scores of West Bank towns, villages and refugee camps, beginning with Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Qalqilya, Tulkarm, Tubas, Irtas and Al-Khader on 30 March. The next day, IDF troops took the offensive to the north of the West Bank, to Jenin and Salfit and to the Far’a and Jenin refugee camps. On 3 April they entered Nablus and three days later Yatta, Attil, Qabatia, Beit Rima and the Fawwar refugee camp.

UNRWA Emergency Appeal Fifteenth Progress Report: March and April 2002 Page 2 of 14 UNRWA's regular programmes in the West Bank and many of its emergency activities were suspended. Curfews and closures kept large numbers of UNRWA personnel from their workstations. Over 60 per cent of UNRWA staff members residing in the West Bank but assigned to positions in the Agency's Field Office in Jerusalem were unable to report to work from the time the offensive began.

On 1 April, UN international personnel in the Gaza Strip deemed non-essential to operations there were relocated to Jerusalem or Amman. Those UNRWA personnel relocated to Jerusalem joined volunteers seconded by other UN agencies based in Jerusalem, supporting UNRWA field operations in the West Bank and providing an international presence to accompany relief convoys.

Violence frequently frustrated UNRWA’s attempts to Personnel from UNDP, UNICEF, deliver humanitarian assistance to besieged OCHA, WFP, UNSCO, UNESCO communities and staff worked at considerable risk to their safety. After the Ramallah Hospital ran and ILO provided emergency dangerously low on specialist formula for premature support to UNRWA’s West Bank infants, UNRWA delivered supplies on 2 April while Field Office and participated in the curfew was lifted for three hours. Despite prior relief operations. Operations were co-ordination with the IDF, the UNRWA convoy came facilitated also with the loan of under fire. One of UNRWA’s assistant Operations trucks and four-wheel drive Support Officers was arrested by Israeli forces and vehicles, especially from UNDP, removed, kept in custody for 56 hours, blindfolded UNSCO and ILO. and handcuffed, without food for the first 52 hours.

In the face of enormous constraints, UNRWA responded as far as possible to the most urgent needs for relief and medical assistance throughout the West Bank. UNRWA kept its health centres in the Dheisheh, Balata, Askar and No. 1 refugee camps open 24 hours a day. In co- operation with non-governmental organisations or individual physicians, the Agency established emergency health clinics in Jericho, Douha, Jenin, and new Askar and Aida refugee camps. Services were provided to anyone in need, whether refugees or non- refugees.

UNRWA provided USD 24,625 worth of medicines and supplies, including gauze, bandages, intravenous solutions, antibiotics in injection form, cannulae, disinfectants, anti-inflammatory agents and oxygen to both public and private hospitals, among them the Ramallah Hospital and three others in Jenin. Three physicians, two pharmacy assistants and one practical nurse were added to the staff. The Agency administered immunisations to any child who was brought to health facilities in the Far’a camp, and the villages of Auja, Dahrieh and Turqumia, when curfews were lifted.

Beginning on 3 April, UNRWA began delivering badly needed foodstuffs to the residents of towns and refugee camps where curfews and the ongoing military offensive had led to shortages, as well as to hospitals and an orphanage in Bethlehem.

By 23 April, UNRWA had distributed 7.8 tonnes of whole milk to families in Beit Jala, Hebron, Jenin, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Irtas and Al-Khader.

UNRWA Emergency Appeal Fifteenth Progress Report: March and April 2002 Page 3 of 14 UNRWA further distributed 14,000 parcels of tinned foods, the bulk of the items contributions from Arab citizens of Israel. On behalf of UNDP, UNRWA delivered 1,116 tins of powered milk and 624 tins of infant formula to residents of Jenin.

By the end of the month, while the offensive had settled, a pattern of IDF forces pulling out of some areas, entering others and making arrests continued. Tensions remained high especially in Bethlehem, where from early in the offensive up to the time of writing the IDF has besieged some 200 Palestinians including civilians, monks and a number of armed men, in the Church of the Nativity.

Jenin

Fighting was intense in the Jenin refugee camp. On the eve of the military assault that began on the night of 2 April, the camp had been home to nearly 14,000 refugees, and covered an area of roughly one square kilometre. In terms of population it was the second largest of the 19 camps in the West Bank. In the course of the assault the camp was fired on from helicopters and tanks. After 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in fighting in the camp on 9 April, the IDF stepped up its offensive. The IDF ordered refugees over loudspeakers to evacuate the camp, and using armoured bulldozers troops demolished houses lining the narrow alleyways as they pushed deeper into the camp. Some 3,000 refugees, mostly women, children and the elderly, heeded the order to evacuate and took refuge in the neighbouring town and in outlying villages. The fighting in Jenin camp ended on 11 April.

While the offensive was underway and for days afterwards, UNRWA, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) were denied entry into the camp, even to evacuate the wounded and the dead.1 There was virtually no means of communication with residents of the camp for more than 10 days. It was rumoured that IDF troops had executed captured Palestinian fighters and that corpses and the injured had been taken to undisclosed locations in Israel. Accordingly there was grave concern for civilians remaining in the camp, as well as for the thousands of refugees who had fled the fighting and were now homeless.

UNRWA made persistent and unrelenting efforts to gain access to the camp. Despite continuing requests to the IDF, UNRWA’s emergency teams, medical staff, ambulance crews and trucks carrying medicine and food were blocked a few hundred metres from the camp. While fighting continued, UNRWA mounted a relief operation to assist refugees who had fled from fighting in the camp with little more than the clothes they wore. On 9 April UNRWA distributed 2,100 parcels of tinned foods to 110 families who had taken refuge in a building belonging to the Jenin Charitable Society, as well as to 1,200 refugee families and 790 non- refugee families in Jenin. The same day, UNRWA delivered half a tonne of medical supplies, including blood, to the Razi Hospital. Over the next five days, UNRWA delivered another 1,200 parcels of tinned foods, 51 tonnes of foodstuffs, 3.2 tonnes of whole milk, 2,460 blankets, 120 tents and 100 kitchen sets to Jenin, and the village of Rummaneh.

UNRWA established an emergency medical centre and three clinics to provide health care to refugees who had sought safety in the town of Jenin. Personnel assigned to the Agency's health centre in the Far’a refugee camp were dispatched to the town to make rounds of the

1 On 12 April in Geneva, at a joint ICRC/Federation press conference, reports were given on the denial of access to the sick and injured. The use of PRCS medical staff as human shields was condemned, and the humiliation of Red Cross and Red Crescent staff was described as unacceptable. Attention was drawn to the deaths of two PRCS medics, and the detention of 28 others. It was reported that PRCS was able to respond to only ten per cent of the humanitarian needs because of denial of access and the behaviour of Israeli soldiers at checkpoints. The example was cited of an ambulance taking 13 hours to travel two kilometres (ICRC: “Movement expresses deep concern about humanitarian situation on West Bank” - www.icrc.org).

UNRWA Emergency Appeal Fifteenth Progress Report: March and April 2002 Page 4 of 14 chronically ill in their homes. UNRWA took medicines, antiseptics, disinfecting agents, insecticides and rodenticides and stored them in a hospital in the town, to be moved quickly into the camp once the assault had ended.

Several thousand refugees remained in the camp throughout the assault. By the time UNRWA gained access to the camp, they had been without water and fresh food for days. On 15 April, 12 days after the assault had begun and four days after the fighting had ended, ICRC and PRCS personnel and an UNRWA ambulance were allowed entry into the camp. Eight bodies were removed before efforts were abandoned owing to the extent of the destruction and fears regarding unexploded ordnance and booby-traps.

At 10.30 a.m. on that day, an UNRWA convoy carrying food and water reached a checkpoint outside the camp, but IDF troops did not permit it to enter until 4 p.m. The route that soldiers indicated the convoy should take was steep and clogged with the debris of destroyed buildings, and the trucks could not negotiate it. The convoy entered the camp by an alternative route. At first, troops inside the camp would not allow the provisions to be unloaded, and after permission was finally given they refused to lift the curfew. Out of fear that refugees might come under fire if they broke the curfew in an attempt to reach the convoy, the trucks turned back, managing to distribute bread and water to only a small number of residents at the edge of the camp who risked their lives when they ventured out of doors.

On 16 April, the first day that UNRWA staff members were allowed unfettered access to the camp, UNRWA distributed 21 tonnes of tinned foods, bread, water and a variety of other foodstuffs to 800 families. By 20 April, the Agency had delivered another 30 tonnes of foodstuffs, water, and 540 bundles of bread for residents of the camp and others who had fled to Wadi Burqeen.

It is estimated that approximately 10 per cent of Jenin refugee camp was destroyed. An estimated 140 buildings, many of them two and three storeys high, were reduced to rubble. Approximately 100 others are considered to be so severely damaged that they are structurally unsound, and no longer habitable. At the time of writing 52 bodies have been recovered, including those of four women and a 10-year-old girl. On 19 April rescue workers pulled a 17- year-old boy alive from the rubble, where he was trapped for nine days.

Disaster experts from donor countries assisted the recovery efforts at Jenin. On 18 April UNRWA brought two Swiss disaster relief specialists to the camp, with experience of post- earthquake recovery operations. The same day six trauma counsellors began working with survivors. On 19 April a team of five Norwegians comprising two bomb disposal experts, a physician and two engineers deployed in the camp. On that day also the first of several personnel from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), making up a United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination Team, arrived to assist UNRWA with its humanitarian responses, both in Jenin and elsewhere.

On 19 April, US Assistant Secretary of State William Burns accompanied At the time of writing the death toll continues UNRWA to Jenin. The following day the to rise as bodies are pulled from the ruins in US Government officially designated the camp a disaster area, opening the way Jenin refugee camp and the Casbah in for assistance from the US Office of Nablus. It will be some time before exact Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). On numbers of those killed and injured in the 23 April, the OFDA airfreighted in to offensive are known, or the extent of the UNRWA 800 tents, a water purification damage calculated. unit, 1,600 water containers and 1,600 hygiene kits, from Pisa, Italy.

UNRWA Emergency Appeal Fifteenth Progress Report: March and April 2002 Page 5 of 14 On 20 April, 15 British personnel with specialist detection equipment arrived to plumb the wreckage in search of other survivors. After 48 hours they concluded there were no others, and prepared to leave.

As of 23 April, in the West Bank UNRWA had recorded 302 deaths and 884 injuries among Palestinians since the start of Operation Defensive Shield. As many as 2,000 others were reportedly arrested and detained.2 There has been wide-scale damage to infrastructure, private property and UNRWA installations.

In the Gaza Strip, violence during March was recorded as having reached the worst levels there since the beginning of the Intifada: 109 Palestinians were reported killed and 193 others injured. During April, there was a reduction of violence in the Gaza Strip, but it was still one of the bloodiest months recorded since the beginning of the Intifada: 39 Palestinians were reported killed and 81 injured in armed clashes or military operations.

On 2 March internal closures were imposed that divided the Gaza Strip into three sectors throughout the period under review, and severely hampered the movement of personnel and supplies. The demolition of houses by Israeli forces continued. In March 43 dwellings housing 61 families (382 persons) were destroyed. In April 17 more, housing 18 families (103 persons) were destroyed.

The Gaza Strip remained extremely tense throughout April, as residents believed that Israeli military operations paralleling those in the West Bank were imminent. 43 Israeli incursions into Palestinian Authority territory in the Gaza Strip were recorded, and 157 armed exchanges. Palestinian militants launched 50 mortar attacks on Israeli settlements, and seven attempts to infiltrate Israeli settlements. Stockpiling of basic foodstuffs and medicines was noted, while prices of staple commodities rose. Sandbanks appeared at the entrances to camps and on main streets.

Queues for bread became a daily feature of life in Gaza after 29 March, when Israeli closure of the Karni commercial crossing point restricted the entry of supplies into the Gaza Strip. While UNRWA continued to await the entry of 1,500 tonnes of its flour from the port of Ashod, in mid-April the Agency loaned 250 tonnes of its available stocks of flour to bakeries in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip, enabling them to keep producing bread.

The Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories (UNSCO) has given preliminary estimates of the economic and social impact on the Palestinian population of the Israeli military offensive.3 UNSCO notes that prior to the offensive of 29 March, the previous 18 months of confrontations and movement restrictions had witnessed more than a 20 per cent reduction in domestic production levels, unprecedented levels of unemployment, a 30 per cent decline in per capita income and more than a doubling of the poverty rate to some 45 per cent of the Palestinian population. The increasingly-restricted movement of the population in previous months was transformed with the offensive into the imposition of curfews directly affecting some 600,000 people, nearly 30 percent of the population of the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem.

2 Reports inter alia by Amnesty International (“Israel and the Occupied Territories, the heavy price of Israeli incursions”) and by Human Rights Watch (“In a Dark Hour: the Use of Civilians during IDF Arrest Operations” and “Jenin: IDF Military Operations”) document these and related events and provide analyses from the perspective of international humanitarian law. These reports are available at their respective websites: www.amnesty.org, and www.hrw.org. 3 “A Briefing on the Economic and Social Implications of the Recent Israeli Incursions in the West Bank” - UNSCO, 13 April 2002.

UNRWA Emergency Appeal Fifteenth Progress Report: March and April 2002 Page 6 of 14 The information available to UNSCO UNRWA’s preliminary estimate is that suggested that the principal economic approximately USD 48.5 million is required result was a near complete cessation of in order for it to meet both immediate relief all productive activity in the main West and rehabilitation needs in the West Bank Bank centres of manufacturing, and longer-term requirements including the construction, commerce and private and repair and reconstruction of shelters. These public services. Activities in these centres were estimated to account for at least 75 funds are for activities over and above those per cent of the value of goods and planned under the Agency’s 2002 Appeal. services produced in the West Bank.

Activities under the Appeal

At the end of April, confirmed pledges to UNRWA’s 2002 Emergency Appeal reached USD 48,449,707, representing approximately 41.4 per cent of requirements under the Appeal. Of this amount however, only USD 14,512,525 had actually been received. USD 11,651,793 of pledges to the Third Emergency Appeal (covering emergency activities for the period June - December 2001) also remained outstanding.

Emergency employment creation

· During March, another 1,568 persons were given short-term employment under UNRWA’s emergency employment creation programme in the Gaza Strip. At the end of the month a total of 4,642 jobs were distributed among the various departments in the Agency’s Field Office and Headquarters in Gaza. In April a further 823 persons were hired. As at 28 April, 4,395 jobs were assigned among UNRWA departments in the Gaza Strip.

· These jobs brought the total number of individuals in the Gaza Strip to have received work under the direct-hire component of this programme since its inception in January 2001 to 16,748, of whom 3,172 are women. A total of 140,639 persons, wage earners and their dependants, are estimated to have benefited.

· In the West Bank in March there were 1,139 additional staff in temporary assignments with UNRWA, 699 of them men and 440 of them women, supporting a total of 5,450 dependants.

· In the Gaza Strip, construction projects and public works were severely disrupted from the end of March with closure of the Karni crossing-point for goods entering Gaza.

· Nevertheless, by the end of April, 63 per cent of the total area of sandy alleyways (259,100m2) to be paved in refugee camps in the Gaza Strip under the first, second and third emergency appeals was completed.

· Shelter reconstruction work in the Gaza Strip came nearly to a complete standstill in April. The reconstruction of 104 shelters belonging to refugee families registered with the Agency as Special Hardship Cases was completed in March, while work on another 26 was underway. 149 shelters were in the tendering and contracting stages.

· The construction of 40 classrooms at six UNRWA schools in the Gaza Strip was completed, and work on another 61 rooms at eight other schools was in progress. Work on six of these was halted because of closures. Two specialised units remain under

UNRWA Emergency Appeal Fifteenth Progress Report: March and April 2002 Page 7 of 14 tender. Work on the construction of four schools in Nuseirat, Jabalya and Bureij camps continued to progress despite delays caused by closures.

· Construction work continued also on the additional floor above the Auto-mechanics section at the Gaza Training Centre. A further three buildings on the same site to accommodate the kitchen, dining room, 18 classrooms, hydrotherapy room, library and laundry are in the tendering stage. Work continued on a number of smaller projects in the Gaza Strip, including toilet blocks, sheds and canteens, but at a slow pace.

· In the West Bank there was no progress on infrastructure projects in either the Balata or Jenin refugee camps, as a result of the Israeli military assaults on these camps. Violence and limited freedom of movement also prevented supervisory staff from gathering complete data on projects underway in other camps.

2 · Nevertheless, according to preliminary data, 17,342m of pathways were paved in 15 of the 18 West Bank camps where work was planned, approximately 20 percent of the 88,300m2 to be paved in the first round of work under the project's third phase. Another 2,732m of drains were constructed in 10 camps, approximately 26 percent of the 17,342m to be constructed in 14 camps. The work entailed 5,600 man-days of labour, and the NIS 371,850 in wages paid represented 31 per cent of expenditures in the month of March.

· There were delays in almost all construction and maintenance projects underway in the West Bank in March. No progress was made with the installation of air conditioning in the health centres in the Tulkarm, Jenin and Ein Sultan refugee camps, nor with maintenance work in the surgical suite in the Agency's hospital in Qalqilya. Work on a playground at a school in Birzeit, which is three-quarters complete, was at a standstill, and no more than five per cent of work was executed on any of the four girls' schools under construction. Closures prevented work from beginning on a distribution centre in the Aqabat Jabr camp, and although a contract for construction of another centre in the Aida camp was signed, the contractor could not mobilise for the work.

· Contracts for additional classrooms to be built at the two training centres in Ramallah and at girls' schools in the Balata and Far’a camps were signed in the month. The Agency's Headquarters Contracts Committee approved the award of a contract for construction of additional classrooms at the Hebron Boys' School.

· Contract proposals for eight more construction or maintenance projects were UNRWA waived tendering procedures and drawn up, and a contract for renovations awarded five service contracts in to the health centre in Qalqilya was connection with the removal of rubble from awarded. Invitations to tender went out in the Balata, Tulkarm, Jenin and Dheisheh connection with three other maintenance refugee camps following the Israeli projects. Tender documents for assaults on these camps. The contracts construction at the girls' school in the cover the work needed to shore up Am'ari camp were prepared, and Bills of Quantities for construction at another in buildings that suffered structural damage. the Arroub camp were in preparation.

Emergency Food Aid

· In the Gaza Strip, distribution of food parcels as part of the first round of the current distribution cycle ended on 1 March when the final 462 food parcels were delivered. The total number of food parcels distributed during the round, which ran from 2 February to 1 March, was 126,764. 1,200 parcels that were not part of the distribution cycle were also issued. 1,118 of these went to families under closure in the Mawasi area of Rafah and

UNRWA Emergency Appeal Fifteenth Progress Report: March and April 2002 Page 8 of 14 Khan Younis, 43 to families in the restricted area of Dugit in the northern Gaza Strip, and 39 to other families whose homes had been demolished.

· Distribution of food parcels as part of the second round of the distribution cycle in the Gaza Strip, which began on 31 March, continued throughout April. By the end of April 118,247 of the total 126,955 families eligible for assistance had received their parcels. The cycle is due to be completed in the first week of May. In addition during April, 43 food parcels were issued to families in the restricted area of Dugit in the north of the Gaza Strip, and a further 12 parcels to refugee families whose shelters were destroyed. 43 sacks of flour were issued to families in the El-Zahra housing project in Gaza City.

· Since the start of emergency food distribution operations a total of 1,112,444 food parcels has been distributed in the Gaza Strip.

· In the West Bank, despite tight restrictions on movement in March, the Agency distributed food parcels to 19,228 families, bringing the total number of rations distributed since January 2001 to 262,943. Violence and closures prevented UNRWA from transporting rations to families in Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Bethlehem, Qalqilya, the villages of Ein Kinya, Iblin and Deir Bzee’, and the Kalandia refugee camp.

Selective cash assistance for families in extreme crisis

· In the Gaza Strip, during March a total of USD 261,600 was issued to 882 families, including three non-refugee families that received assistance totalling USD 1,350. During April a further USD 174,130 was disbursed among 585 families. This included cash assistance to 25 non-refugee families, totalling USD 11,800.

· Since the beginning of the emergency, a total of USD 3,238,451 has been disbursed among 9,762 families in the Gaza Strip, at an average of USD 332 per family. USD 302,619 has been issued to 480 families who lost their breadwinner; USD 207,683 to 789 families whose breadwinners sustained serious injury; US D 854,133 to 2036 families who were forced to relocate as a result of damage caused to their homes by Israeli military operations; USD 1,874,016 to 6457 families with pressing emergency-related cash requirements, such as utility payments. A total of 321 non-refugee families in the Gaza Strip have benefited from cash assistance totalling USD 149,900.

· In the West Bank, during March UNRWA approved payments totalling USD 138,882 to 528 families in 10 refugee camps, to help them cover the cost of replacing household effects destroyed in the offensive in the refugee camps. The overwhelming majority of these families reside in the Balata (194) and Jenin (170) refugee camps. UNRWA also approved USD 48,968 in payments to another 880 families to supplement their incomes. Total disbursements in the West Bank for April remain to be compiled.

UNRWA Emergency Appeal Fifteenth Progress Report: March and April 2002 Page 9 of 14 Emergency shelter repair and reconstruction

· In the Gaza Strip, by the end of April a total of 485 shelters, accommodating 669 families (3,827 persons), had been destroyed or damaged beyond repair as a result of Israeli military incursions since the start of the Intifada. These housed 555 refugee families (3,159 persons) and 114 non-refugee families (668 persons).

· A further 311 dwellings in the Gaza Strip, home to 356 families (2,469 persons), had sustained varying degrees of repairable damage. These housed 268 refugee families (2,136 persons) and 43 non-refugee families (333 persons).

· Ongoing assessment of the economic and social conditions of the affected refugees has shown that 469 families have no alternative housing to which they can move. Construction of housing for these families is contingent upon the availability of funds, and on the availability of land that it will be necessary for the Palestinian Authority to locate for this purpose. Security conditions preclude the reconstruction of these shelters at their original locations.

· Work on the first 64 housing units in the Tel es-Sultan quarter of Rafah and on another project to build 33 shelters in the same area was suspended on 31 March, as supplies of concrete were exhausted. These projects respectively remain 60 per cent and 30 per cent completed. A further 24 shelters in Block J at Rafah remain under design. These are intended to replace shelters destroyed in an IDF operation to explode a tunnel across the Egyptian border in January 2002. 82 shelters in the same area have already been repaired. The Palestinian Ministry of Housing has now allocated new plots of land for 86 shelters in Rafah. The original site for these units was found to be unsuitable for security reasons. Design work for another 17 housing units in Deir el-Balah is continuing.

· In the West Bank, in the course of the Israeli offensive in early March affecting refugee camps, 17 buildings housing 26 families were completely demolished. Another 45 buildings housing 47 families were partially destroyed. The preliminary estimate of the cost of reconstructing or repairing these dwellings was put at USD 520,000. Over 2,600 further shelters in the refugee camps, housing over 13,000 refugees, sustained damage during the offensive.

· UNRWA had not finished calculating the cost of repairing the damage to these shelters in the camps, its installations or infrastructure, when the second military offensive began on 29 March. Nevertheless, by 27 March the Agency had extended USD 618,500 in grants to 2,474 families to enable them to meet the cost of repairs to their dwellings. Damages to another 155 shelters had yet to be surveyed when the second offensive began.

Post-injury physical and social needs

· In the Gaza Strip, 15 persons injured in clashes during March were given first aid at UNRWA clinics, or were transported by UNRWA ambulance to nearby hospitals. With no further such injuries treated in April, the total number of persons in the Gaza Strip thus assisted since the beginning of the Intifada stood at 1,369.

· During March 29 persons in the Gaza Strip were referred to UNRWA health centres for special post-injury care, including physical rehabilitation and the provision of prosthetic devices. This bought the total number of persons provided with such help since the start of the Intifada to 772. Of these, 74 were referred to the Artificial Limbs and Polio centre in Gaza and 517 others received physiotherapy at the UNRWA clinics. Most are still being treated.

UNRWA Emergency Appeal Fifteenth Progress Report: March and April 2002 Page 10 of 14 · By 28 April a further 20 persons received physiotherapy at UNRWA clinics, bringing the total number of persons provided with such care to 537, while a further four persons were referred to the Artificial Limbs and Polio Centre for prosthetic devices, bringing to 78 the number of patients in the Gaza Strip that have been provided with prosthetic limbs since the beginning of the Intifada.

· Modifications to 12 shelters housing physically disabled persons in the Gaza Strip were completed through March and April. Work on another shelter was in progress. Modifications for 29 more shelters were under tender, while modifications to a further 41 shelters were being designed.

Health

· In the West Bank during March there were serious disruptions to UNRWA’s health services as a result of closures, curfews and violence. While the military offensive was underway, the health centre in the Far’a camp was the only one in the vicinity of Nablus that functioned. The health centres in Bethlehem and the Am’ari and Dheisheh camps did not open, and those in the Kalandia and Jalazone camps functioned without critical staff. Two of the Agency's ambulances came under gunfire, and the health installations in the Jenin, Am’ari and Dheisheh refugee camps sustained damage.

· Among contingency actions taken in light of the March offensive, in the Aida and Azzah refugee camps where the Agency has no health facilities, UNRWA retained physicians with homes in the camps and provided them with the medical supplies they needed to treat the sick and injured. 124 supplementary medical professionals and support staff in various positions included 13 physicians, three dental surgeons, four midwives, seven staff nurses, 21 practical nurses, 13 laboratory technicians, seven physiotherapists and 13 pharmacy assistants. Assigned to Qalqilya Hospital were a further four physicians, two surgeons, an anaesthesiologist, an internist, a paediatrician, a specialist in obstetrics and gynaecology, a midwife, seven nurses and 14 other personnel.

· In March the staff of UNRWA’s two mental health teams in the Gaza Strip, established to meet growing emergency-related needs, especially among children, saw 257 individuals. 90 schoolchildren were assessed to need follow-up or referral to specialised centres. The teams undertook 99 home visits, and 63 visits to NGOs, schools or community- based centres in refugee camps to provide guidance on the management of psychological problems. A total of 1,542 persons were reached in training sessions and briefings.

· In April the teams saw 373 individuals, assessing 60 to be in need of follow-up or referral. They undertook 136 home visits and reached a total of 1,942 persons in the course of 110 training and briefing sessions.

· In March an order was placed for two additional ambulances for the Gaza Strip.

UNRWA Emergency Appeal Fifteenth Progress Report: March and April 2002 Page 11 of 14 Education

· In the West Bank, the events of March gravely disrupted the Agency's education programme, with 51,744 of 58,509 pupils missing between one and ten days of classes during the month. A total of 7,399 teaching days were lost in the month. On average, 352 teachers were absent each day, at a cost of USD 199,773 to the Agency. Teaching days lost during the month were 132 per cent of the total number of days lost in the West Bank during the entire 2000/2001 academic year.

· Schools in the Balata, Tulkarm, Nur Shams, Jenin, Am’ari, Dheisheh and Aida camps sustained damage during the March offensive. In the case of the girls' school in Tulkarm camp, where IDF troops had taken up positions, it took 60 volunteers five hours to clean the classrooms of debris and excrement.

· Three students enrolled at UNRWA schools in the West Bank, the oldest of them being ten years old, were reported killed. Two of them were girls residing in the Jenin camp and the third a boy from the Askar camp. By the end of March, 52 injuries among pupils had been reported. Two sisters in the Am’ari camp suffered nervous breakdowns when tanks smashed through the walls of their home. Both have been sent to Jordan for treatment. When the offensive ended, UNRWA's 32 counsellors, working with 15 local organisations, began an intensive counselling programme to provide support to teaching staff and students. A total of 354 group counselling sessions were conducted. A total of 88 students and 18 teachers received individual counselling.

· The majority of UNRWA schools in the West Bank closed at the start of the offensive of 29 March. Initial attempts to reopen schools in locations where there was calm were not wholly successful, either because teachers were unable to reach schools or parents were fearful of sending their children out to the schools.

· In the Gaza Strip, conditions permitted UNRWA to maintain its remedial education programme throughout March. This programme was for pupils whose learning has been severely affected by the crisis. An after-school activities programme to relieve stresses caused by the surrounding events and violence also continued through March. There was nevertheless a six-day suspension of activities because of closures and security concerns. In view of the lost days, and to compensate for earlier disruptions, both programmes were extended beyond the scheduled end date of 11 April.

· The after-school activities programme ended on 23 April. Since it began on 12 January, approximately 12,000 students at 40 schools took part in a wide range of cultural, educational, recreational and arts-related activities. Over 250 teachers with different specialisations, recruited under the emergency employment programme, conducted these activities under the supervision of school head teachers.

UNRWA Emergency Appeal Fifteenth Progress Report: March and April 2002 Page 12 of 14 · The remedial programme in maths, Arabic and English ended on 24 April. Approximately 65,000 pupils (35,000 in the fourth, fifth and sixth elementary grades and 30,000 in the three preparatory grades) were involved with the programme. They have recently taken tests to enable UNRWA to assess the impact of the programme, the results of which remain unknown at the time of writing.

· During April, workshops to assist with the preparation of self-learning materials were conducted in the middle camps of the Gaza Strip for the 337 teachers and 15 school supervisors unable to report to duty stations in the north and south of the Gaza Strip. These materials have now been distributed to schools.

Other emergency activities

· In the Gaza Strip, during March UNRWA issued 24 tents, 219 blankets, 220 mattresses, 71 mats and 38 kitchen sets to refugee and non-refugee families whose houses were demolished in the month. During April UNRWA issued 4 tents, 80 blankets, 80 mattresses, 26 mats and 15 kitchen sets to families whose houses were similarly destroyed. Since the beginning of the Intifada, the Agency has distributed 378 tents, 79,241 blankets, 9,653 mattresses, 723 mats and 394 kitchen sets in emergency assistance to families in the Gaza Strip.

· In the West Bank, during March UNRWA distributed blankets to 212 families, tents to 19 and kitchen kits to 172. Subsequent activities for April are described earlier this report.

Monitoring and reporting

· Operations Support Officer (OSO) teams continued to undertake important work throughout March and April, monitoring UNRWA operations in the West Bank, facilitating the passage of supplies and personnel and negotiating these activities with the Israeli authorities. Relief convoys have been subjected to extended delays at checkpoints, and have frequently encountered hazardous conditions.

· The importance of this work was amply demonstrated in April, with the four OSO teams forming an operational nucleus around which UNRWA emergency relief convoys could be stepped up, supplemented by voluntary personnel from other UN agencies and UNRWA departments.

Obstacles encountered

· Tightened Israeli restrictions are having a serious impact on the provision of humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip.

· This includes the closure of the Karni commercial crossing point. This crossing, the only entry point into the Gaza Strip for commercial goods arriving from Israel, has been closed since 29 March. Fuel supplies in Gaza ran low in April. Despite a partial re-opening of the crossing on 24 March, the vast majority of UNRWA containers have been denied access. Of the 350 UN containers that have arrived at Ashdod port since the beginning of April, only 18 have been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip.

· As a result of internal closures effectively dividing the Gaza Strip into three sectors, approximately 750 staff members, 10 per cent of the UNRWA’s workforce in the Gaza Strip, have been unable to reach their duty stations or have had to work reduced hours.

UNRWA Emergency Appeal Fifteenth Progress Report: March and April 2002 Page 13 of 14 · All UNRWA schools in the Gaza Strip were closed for six days in March, for security and logistical reasons.

· 54 of UNRWA’s 69 emergency projects in the Gaza Strip have been affected by the closures to varying degrees. These include the construction of school buildings, classrooms and camp paving projects.

· Closures and the events taking place in March interrupted the distribution of rations and cash subsidies to the special hardship families in the middle camps and Rafah area of the Gaza Strip.

· Because of the closures, the southern Gaza Strip remains deprived of specialist health services. Cardiology, paediatrics, diabetology, gynaecology, ophthalmology and dental services have been suspended, affecting some 3000 patients.

· Obtaining permits for UNRWA local staff in Gaza to travel to Israel or the West Bank remains impossible.

· The Rehabilitation Centre for the Visually Impaired remains closed, after it was damaged during an Israeli aerial attack on a nearby police building.

Annexe:

Spreadsheets: pledges and contributions received (all appeals) as at 30 April.

Cover photo: © UNRWA/Gustav Nordstrom West Bank: © UNRWA/OSO Programme Gaza photo: © UNRWA/Adnan Abu Hasna

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