Saudi Gazette report

United Nations — The Kingdom has reiterated that it will continue supporting Palestinian refugees throughout the region and make every effort to find sustainable solutions to financial challenges facing United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

This came in a speech delivered by the member of the Permanent Mission of the Kingdom to the United Nations Shaher Bin Khalid Al-Khanini before the Special Political and Decolonization Committee of United Nations.

Al-Khanini said the Kingdom provided uninterrupted support for UNRWA in past decades, which makes it the first donor country.

In 2017, the Kingdom donated $51 million to finance a number of projects in health, education, social and housing areas.

It has pledged $36.9 million for projects to be implemented in 2018.

The Kingdom’s annual contribution amounts to $2 million, he added.

According to UNRWA, nearly one-third of registered Palestine refugees, more than 1.5 million individuals, live in 58 recognized Palestine refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

A Palestine refugee camp is defined as a plot of land placed at the disposal of UNRWA by the host government to accommodate Palestine refugees and set up facilities to cater to their needs. Areas not designated as such are not recognized as camps.

However, UNRWA also maintains schools, health centers and distribution centers in areas outside the recognized camps where Palestine refugees are concentrated, such as Yarmouk, near Damascus.

The plots of land on which the recognized camps were set up are either state land or, in most cases, land leased by the host government from local landowners. This means that the refugees in camps do not ‘own’ the land on which their shelters were built, but have the right to ‘use’ the land for a residence.

Socioeconomic conditions in the camps are generally poor, with high population density, cramped living conditions and inadequate basic infrastructure such as roads and sewers.