Nablus - "Jerusalem" dot com - Madar for the Press and Media / Report by Wafaa Abu Turabi - With the continuation of the strike of the employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the Palestinian camps, the people of Balata camp in Nablus live in difficult and tragic conditions that cast a shadow on various aspects of their lives. In conjunction with the occupation’s attacks and repeated incursions into the camp, and the resulting loss of lives and destruction of citizens’ homes and properties.

All health and educational facilities and UNRWA relief aid distribution centers in the refugee camps in the West Bank have been disrupted since the beginning of the strike on January 23, which is still continuing until now, which has increased the suffering of the residents of the Palestinian camps and doubled the burden of responsibilities placed on the shoulders of People's Committees for Services.

A member of the Executive Office of the Department of Refugee Affairs in the West Bank and a member of the People’s Committee for Balata Camp Services, Ahmed Dhouqan, said in an exclusive interview with Al-Quds.com: “The people of the camp and the People’s Committee are basically facing heavy suffering and burdens before the start of the strike, as a result of the daily Israeli incursions and what they cause.” Destruction of homes and people's property, and the consequences of all of this fall on the shoulders of the Services Committee, which in turn bears its full responsibilities in this regard, such as repairing some damages and setting the budgets that it needs, and these responsibilities increased after the start of an open-ended strike by UNRWA workers in the West Bank, which impeded work In various camp institutions and public services.

Thouqan explains: "We cannot determine our position on this strike, as the striking employees are from our people and are demanding their rights, and their salaries are eroding and insufficient as a result of the cuts that are taking place. We also want UNRWA to remain present as a witness to the Palestinian Nakba and the right of return." Which is the reason for its establishment, despite its practices and shortcomings against Arab employees and even the refugee population.”

The citizens express their dissatisfaction with these difficult conditions that their camp in particular and the Palestinian camps are going through in general, and many of them wish to volunteer in order to improve a better reality for their camp.

Balata camp is considered one of the largest camps in the West Bank in terms of population, with more than twenty-four thousand people living on a limited area of land of less than one square kilometer. It also contains one health center and four schools, two of which are for males and the other for females. All of them include about three thousand five hundred students.

Regarding life in the camp during the strike, Thouqan says that they could not leave the waste piled up inside the camp, so they took voluntary initiatives with the participation of the camp residents to clean its lanes during the strike period and urged them to take this waste and put it in the nearby containers. The Nablus municipality also helped in transporting it to private landfills. Pointing out that the committee cannot hire cleaners, as it takes on the role of UNRWA, which is trying to evade its duties towards the Palestinian camps.

He adds that the health center inside the camp operates before the strike for a few times, around eight in the morning until two in the evening, and there are no centers other than it, and that going to a private doctor is expensive for those who do not have government health insurance, and they demanded before starting the strike and closing the center that medicine for diseases be distributed Chronic diseases such as pressure, diabetes and asthma so that it is sufficient for a month.

Thouqan hopes that the duration of this strike will not be prolonged, as it happened in 2015, when it lasted for sixty days, and this also affects the education sector, and that the process of compensating students in schools is not easy.

He expresses his concern about the decline in interest in the role of "UNRWA", which was formed to provide relief to the Palestinian refugees, and its role ends with their return, and that every three years it is granted a renewal, and recently it was renewed, but there is no support for it, indicating that there are many cuts that have occurred in this agency, whether With education, health and home repair inside the camps, they have become dependent on the emergency budget, and they do not have a fixed budget.

And he continues, "There is great pressure to end UNRWA's role and stop its support from some countries with the aim of pressuring it to stop its work. This is something we always fight, through the Department of Refugee Affairs and the popular committees, and we always submit the necessary reports as much as possible."

According to the Union of Arab Employees of UNRWA, the strike came as a result of the agency's downsizing policy, its prejudice to the job security of its Arab workers and its imposition of sanctions on union members, in addition to its refusal to increase their salaries. The number of workers and employees of the agency and its institutions in the West Bank is three thousand and seven hundred. A worker and an employee, working in the education, health and relief services sectors, all of whom committed themselves to the strike.

For its part, "UNRWA" indicated that it is suffering from "financial hardship" and called on its employees to "dialogue and not to close its international institutions."

Thouqan stresses that the camps are in need of government support in light of the difficult security and living conditions in which they live, as is the case in the Jenin, Balata, Dheisheh and Shuafat camps, explaining that the camp residents suffer from problems of unemployment, poverty, overcrowding and the dilapidated houses that UNRWA does not help to restore.

UNRWA was established by a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly in 1949, to provide direct relief and employment for Palestinian refugees in its five regions, in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, until a just solution to their cause is reached.