why are there still layoffs if the loss of american money isn't as severe as it was thought. well you mentioned there is still a deficit so i have been very clear and you know the deficit is sizable it's more than sixty million dollars which is not small by any standard so we've are significantly reduced it but we are still below sea level we are still struggling to breathe and when you don't have enough money it sadly then affects a couple of people i've consistently said from the beginning of the year and. these decisions in july if we get our complete deficit covered and new money for the emergency appeal on top of it we can reconsider these decisions we are sadly not in that situation yet so there are there are other downfalls as well the agencies laying off local workers angry mobs are threatening international employees i hear you had to evacuate people that you and i are w.a.

in gaza in real danger from all sides no. no i wouldn't say that and we didn't evacuate people because they are lives threatened what we did was there was indeed a serious security incident but what led to this is that some of our angry employees have really been preventing us from working in our main office and have chased us around our alternative work locations in gaza and then there was this one incident which could have turned into something very problematic and so i then decided with my leadership that it would be prudent for a limited time to withdraw all non-essential staff from gaza to essentially give the clear message to the rulers here that is getting a lot of money to keep its services open and for that we need to be functional and you know then a few days later i was our union actually stopped its industrial action we are

currently in ten days of of grace a grace period as they call it. to negotiate and we have brought our international colleagues back because at this point we are functional again so let's talk about a little bit about the role of your agency you and our w e has taken care of gaza like nobody else since almost house of gazans are unemployed and most of them are considered refugees by your agency. your agency provides gazans with education job training health services might make or credit not to mention basic stuff like food so are you guys essentially taking on a government role here have you become like the palestinians i don't know social ministry. that's a good question i indeed myself often say that the core of what we do here in gaza is to provide government like services to seventy percent of the population so we

run two hundred seventy five schools for two hundred eighty thousand children at this point we run twenty two primary health care centers which are visited each three months each quarter by one million people to get essential basic medical treatment and care and we do some social work so these three areas education health and social services are indeed government like and because seventy percent or more of the population here are refugees we are indeed the biggest service provider in the street in addition we are providing a couple of other services the biggest one is food distribution to a million people half the population that i call humanitarian aid it's a response to the three wars that have happened here and we are doing in addition to our public services humanitarian work like the food distribution and cash for workers to beauty's so that you know that your funding has been cut will hamas be

able to fill in the hole that will be left. that is not really on the table at all because we have a clear mandate from the united nations general assembly to provide these services to palestine registered palestine refugees and the the way this would and stopping these services and potentially handing them over to host or storage fees would be if the general assembly decides there is actually a just solution for palestine refugees and for the question of palestine this is not the case at all so from a political and mandate point of view there is absolutely no reason why we should hand over these services to anyone else we need a political just solution for the refugees and then we can start discussing how we eventually hand over to water ever all soroti is relevant but doctor i have never

thought that taking care of palestinians in such an encompassing way means that you kind of treat them like little kids who are unable to fend for themselves. listen we get asked that question from time to time but i don't think that providing basic education from classes one to nine and providing basic health care makes people dependent children because all we are doing really is at the end of the day prepare them for adult life and make sure they're healthy everything else is not under almost responsibility and by that i mean in particular the economy i think you made earlier a reference to very high unemployment here of over fifty percent by unknowns so would rather does not take care of all aspects of palestine refugee lives what we basically do is give them some hope and a basic chance to make use of the opportunities that come their way we are not like

parents and certainly do not treat the refugees like aarons so you wrote that good governance and unity government is what thousand needs to offset the effects of these rallies located and the lack of solution to the palestinian conflict that's great but i mean if we were to get real where will that good government has really come from if it hasn't been there for all these decades. you know that's a good question i think the same question must be. everywhere in palestine. you know as a representative of the united nations of course what we would say is good governance comes from elections i mean people the citizens in the habitants of the gaza strip of any country need to give a proper a mandate to the point and political parties and actors that present themselves for

elections so what what we would urge is that there are proper political processes like elsewhere and as you will know part of the so-called reconciliation talks that started last year about a year a goal was indeed in the central element was to at some point reach elections so i think until there is space is not is created for proper political processes we will not see good governance we need good solid political processes including elections once again how will they know who to vote for if their government services are provided by you know their own officials. well there is a lot more that the government does than providing these essential services and i am thinking all the infrastructure and you know roads i am thinking of water provision i'm thinking of relic tree city i'm thinking of security i'm thinking all

the legal framework for the economic sector for the private sector all those things are an essential government responsibility and if there was a free and fair elections here and also already came into being that took care of these services that would not at all contradict with walk or the right is doing for the refugees in terms of education health and social services i think this would become still could be seen as very complementary the government and the elected government as has happened here in the past by the way and is ongoing the thirty percent of the population that are not registered refugees odd being taken care of in education and all the terms by the local authorities already read that fish while they aware of going to take a short break right now when we're back continue talking to dr matthew gas the director of the united nations relief and works agency discussing whether there is a glimmer of hope for palestinian refugees stay with us.

i've been saying the numbers mean they matter the u.s. is over one trillion dollars in debt more than ten white collar crime stamping each day. eighty five percent of global will to the bridge each week. six percent market saw thirty percent minus one is your home with four hundred to five hundred three per second per second and bitcoin rose to twenty thousand dollars. china is building a two point one billion dollar a our industrial park but don't let the numbers overwhelm. the only numbers you

need to remember is one one does not show you can afford to miss the one and only boom but. let's face it this government official of president i don't have space in the system. i'm too liberal the system designed for people like me who move. as broadly. defined the poor here for different reasons also job loss a whole. most people in philadelphia are only a ballot two paychecks away from homelessness. take tyranny you

too can be disappeared in broad daylight also the fate of a saudi journalist is testing washington's relations with riyadh is the crown prince's rule in doubt and much much more on this edition of crossfire. obama codified the worst honesty's of wall street institutionalized the kleptocracy journal a blind eye to the excesses of the really the the rats on on on financed in america who are still frank with impunity and going to sell this is draining the swamp unfortunately i must say that it does mean that interest rates are going to start going higher and this is for the. first time in thirty two years the bond market bull rally we've had thirty years or longer this looks like it's coming and that is a fundamental shift. in the economy for the world and for the united states going forward so that will be the big story of the next twenty four hours.

and you'll do you know. no more i. will be in the lead. in from there is a trade in young girls sold into an underground sex industry sometimes but the people they trust the most.

were back when dr. a director of the united nations relief and works agency for palestine talking about the challenges. facing gaza is obviously very hurt by the israeli hostility that is one thing but this fight between palestinians is another just recently west bank palestine tried to stop a shipment of fuel for a power plant in gaza palestine how does this rivalry a fact what you have to do in gaza how do you offset this in fighting. this and we are not directly affected by the challenges. leadership because as we. discussed earlier all drop here is to provide keep public like services education house and social services that are not dependent on on the local authorities we need to have good cooperation but they are not dependent on

any in-fighting or differences of opinion what is happening though is that whenever they fight and don't agree and when the west bank the p.a. takes measure of course it effects the population at large if there is not enough fuel to run an electricity everyone is affected including the refugees and that increases the pressures from the population of refugees in our case for additional services so there is a knock on effect in terms of additional humanitarian needs but it does not directly the rift between the west bank and here does not directly affect the provision of alcor services fossella in the west bank is trying to make life worse for hamas in gaza life gets worse hamas sends people to the israeli border to blow some steam off clashes break out people die and next thing you know there's another israeli operation in gaza spurred by the interim palestinian rivalry and the school's good ball and their employees. how can you be working in their place like

a base and stick to them in a day when you see how the politics of this whole affair are making it almost impossible for you to be successful. well the two comments i would have to that is number one we sadly have had three wars here over the last decade or so and through these through wars and hostilities kept working we kept providing our basic services the twenty fourteen war was largely in the summer so in a sense and we were lucky then because the schools were not there were not open because of the summer holidays and instead our schools were actually became a shelter for desperate people trying to flee and seek shelter from the hostilities but in essence our health centers for example through all three wars have been operational so that's one comment the second comment is we all hope that there will not be another outbreak of hostilities and war because you are right with your

question if that were the case it will not only make everyone's life here more miserable put lives in danger it will make also our the provision of our core services much more difficult and if it is an outright war possibly impossible so for the sake of the two million citizens here including the one point three million refugees we must do everything possible and the political players on all sides must do everything possible to avoid another war that's not about hamas hamas is considered by most of the world a terror organization and it's not exactly a democratic one un valley's espousing group right how do you deal with hamas interfering in your activities i've heard for instance that hamas fire bombed you're mixed gender summer camps that extremists try to kill one of your predecessors why is hamas in call think with you i mean you're not even part of

this large war anyways. there is and there are many different sides to hamas and i don't really want to be drawn into a political discussion into a political discussion of i do want to describe to you how we work together you cannot operate as united nations this is not just wouldn't but un d.p. world health organization and in fact other international organizations like the international committee of the red cross you cannot work in a place like gaza without pragmatic cooperation with the locals or ities which are hamas in this case hero or have been for most of the last few years and what that pragmatic corporation looks like in the interest of the people we're serving is on the one hand technical cooperation with line ministries for example throughout the last couple of years the ministry of health here which is under the control of the of the union government has done a good job a good service and we have pragmatically worked with our health teams have worked

with the health professionals in the ministry of health similarly ministry of education we have over all hell's matic relationship with the ministry which again is linked also to the p.a. so there is this kind of pragmatic technocratic corporation let's say and then the other area is security must be fucked or controlled security here and we would not be able to function none of us from the international side and that includes visitors media people if hamas did not provide the basic security and for most of the time they actually do provide that this does not mean we agree with them politically i'm not making a political statement on the water does in political terms or in military terms purely describing to you that we have over all a functional relationship with them well your organization also comes under fire

from. pro israeli side one of the main american arguments against un r w a is that it enables a mass of people to leave on entitlements do you feel that maybe you were providing livelihood to so many people also makes them used to you dependent on nate not be able to live without it basically from an american point of view it's like having people on welfare all the time do you see their point here. oh i think that's a nonsensical argument if if indeed the one point three million people were deep and entirely in terms of their livelihoods that would be an argument we would have to deal with but to repeat what i said earlier walk we do is provide basic education if you go to any american city like chicago or new york there is public education system if you go to any city in the united kingdom for example or in

germany there is basic primary health care provided by the state so no one talks of people using those services being totally dependent on the state and our relationship with the refugees is the same we provide core services like education and also to give them a chance in life to have perspectives because they have a basic education to keep them healthy in terms of what they make their life that is not our responsibility that each individual's responsibility and then also of course the responsibility of refugee and other political leaders so what i keep reading everywhere what your critics say in israel and in the united states is that your agency inflates the number of palestinian refugees that if the u.n. criteria is to be applied there are a number would be ten times less than the way you count them i don't know if it's true or not but if it is that why is your criteria for palestinians even those who

have citizenship or citizens' rights in other countries different from other you are an agency is criteria. ok first of all it's just in correct this claim that we use criteria that are different from the ones the united nations high commissioner for refugees u.n.h.c.r. uses is nonsense the u.n.h.c.r. similarly has for certain situations a system where they register and support descendants of an all regional refugee population examples of this you can find in afghanistan as an example so it is simply not true that we have different criteria and different approaches the reason we keep registering the descendants of the or original generation of seven hundred thousand or so that seventy years ago were thrown off their land is a question of justice we think that for as for any population in history in if you

get removed from your land forcibly you are entitled to a just solution and so the main purpose of our registration of refugees even those who may for example by now be in the united states or germany or elsewhere is to keep alive the question of justice because if ever there is a just solution then all these registered people will be able to participate in that just solution it doesn't mean obviously that a refugee who now lives in the united states and possibly has a green card there from benefits from all services we only provide the services we've talked about to the refugees who are actually here in gaza in this case and need them so there's a difference between registration as a witness function just as function and the provision of services so another thing israel says is that by worldly designating palestinians as refugees you know agency

indirectly as support to palestinian political costs their right of return mainly do you think that's the main reason for united states and israel to be hostile. towards your are that is ation. well our perception as is the perception of others in the refugees themselves to start with is that indeed they are attempts to take the refugee question off the table and what i mean by that is to take the question of justice off the table no the united states is one of the member states as is israel by the way of the united nations that has made clear commitments through various resolutions of the general assembly to the palestine refugees to find in call of course dialogue with israel a just solution and so for us it is not a question of perpetuating the problem through the refugee status and giving them services the real problem is the absence of a just and fair solution and the united states and israel and the international

community in deed need to as a whole not focus on what we do but must focus on the question of where is a just solution once there is a just solution will go away i would love nothing more than to be the last director in gaza not because we run out of money but because there is a just solution and we are no longer needed to provide services to the descendants of those who were thrown off their land and the fish really just really briefly you're part of the united nations to your organization is adamant about being nurtured in the israeli palestinian dispute but still by supporting the right of return aren't you losing your in a trial it is since in case of this particular conflict it is a major political issue. no i understand the question we are not a political organization we are a service provision instrument as we have talked about the right to return is found

in resolutions of the general assembly there are political processes within the united nations chiefly in the you're not in the general assembly of which all member states are part of that's where those discussions take place we focus on providing services to the refugees until the politicians find a solution for the problem thank you for this interview we were talking to dr matthew as a director of the united nations relief and works agency for palestine discussing how the u.s. funding cuts will affect it's help to refugees that is it for this edition of sophia see you next time.

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