UNRWA Headquarters Gaza Department of External Relations Telephone: + 972 8 677 7720 Fax: + 972 677 7698 email: [email protected] 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.