PLO rejects laying off UNRWA employees and demands urgent international action to secure sustainable funding

The meeting discussed UNRWA's compounding financial crisis, the risks of the agency's management heading toward laying off large numbers of its employees, and ways to confront these challenges and ensure the continuity of the agency's work and services.

The committee stressed that UNRWA employees form the backbone of the agency, and that laying them off will not resolve the financial crisis, but rather threaten the sustainability of education, health, relief, and social protection services provided to millions of refugees, and increase humanitarian and social burdens in the camps, thus threatening stability in the region.

It affirmed that funding UNRWA is an international responsibility linked to the agency's mandate established by the UN General Assembly under Resolution 302, and to the international community's obligations toward the Palestinian refugee issue and their rights, pending a just solution to their cause in accordance with international legitimacy resolutions, foremost among them Resolution 194. It stressed the need for donor countries to collectively bear the responsibility of providing sufficient and sustainable funding that enables the agency to continue its work and fulfill its obligations.

The committee demanded that Acting UNRWA Commissioner-General Christian Saunders reverse any move to lay off employees, freeze related procedures, avoid compromising their rights and salaries, explore available legal and administrative alternatives to overcome the crisis, and engage positively with the temporary proposals and options presented by the PLO Department of Refugee Affairs, the General Conference of Local Staff Unions, and experts specialized in UNRWA's financial situation, so as to ensure the protection of employees and avoid forced layoffs.

It called for urgent international action to secure about $70 million to cover urgent funding needs and ensure the disbursement of employee salaries for the upcoming months of November and December, in parallel with broad political and diplomatic action to secure sufficient, sustainable, and stable funding for the agency.

Within this framework, the committee called on the Acting Commissioner-General of UNRWA to initiate a tour of donor and concerned countries to mobilize the necessary financial support for the agency, and to work on forming a joint committee comprising representatives of host countries and the PLO to contribute to the international campaign to secure funding, and to coordinate political and diplomatic efforts and moves aimed at ensuring the sustainable funding of UNRWA and the continuity of its services.

It also demanded that UNRWA's management open a serious and responsible dialogue with the local staff union and the Department of Refugee Affairs, enhance coordination with host countries, and adopt an approach based on transparency and participation to address the existing crisis, away from unilateral decisions that affect employees' rights or detract from the basic services provided to refugees.

In the same context, the committee called on the PLO Department of Refugee Affairs to activate joint efforts with popular committees, staff unions, and national forces, and to organize a broad popular movement to protect UNRWA, safeguard its standing and role, mobilize support to secure necessary funding for its budgets, and counter attempts to curtail its services and dismantle its institutions, considering that these attempts represent a direct targeting of the humanitarian and national rights of Palestinian refugees.

The committee affirmed that UNRWA represents an essential lifeline for Palestinian refugees and cannot be dispensed with or replaced, warning that undermining its role or drying up its funding sources threatens refugee rights as well as regional and international stability.

In another context, the committee addressed the ongoing Israeli aggression on West Bank governorates, villages, and camps, shedding particular light on the systematic and brutal targeting faced by Palestinian camps in the northern West Bank, which are now facing a war of total infrastructure destruction and continuous attempts to liquidate the Palestinian presence therein.

The committee condemned the serious military escalation in Hebron Governorate, represented by the forced displacement of about 250 Palestinian families, amounting to more than 2,500 Palestinians who were forcibly evacuated at gunpoint from their homes in the neighborhoods of Jaldah, Ein Deir Bahah, and areas adjacent to settlements, and having their homes turned into military barracks.

It affirmed that the operations of forcibly evacuating Palestinians, besieging the governorate, and completely closing its entrances do not come as isolated events, but rather fall directly within official and pre-prepared Israeli schemes for demographic emptying, ethnic cleansing, and expanding settlement areas, in line with the practice of genocide and collective punishment policies aimed at settling the conflict and destroying any possibility of establishing an independent Palestinian state.

The committee stressed that the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in the face of the war machine and colonialism is the rock upon which all conspiracies of uprooting and displacement will shatter, calling on the international community and the Security Council to take urgent action to provide international protection for the Palestinian people, take deterrent measures against the occupation, ensure that Palestinians remain on their land, and thwart displacement plans.

Participating in the meeting were Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, alongside a delegation from the UNRWA staff union comprising union head Abdul Karim Al-Haj Mohammed, and union members Kamal Al-Biyari and Loay Al-Zaq, in the presence of Executive Committee members Ahmed Abu Houli, Saleh Raafat, Faisal Aranki, Ramzi Rabah, Bassam Al-Salhi, Ahmed Majdalani, Wasel Abu Yousef, Ali Abu Zuhri, and Saleem Al-Bardini.