This piece is the second of our communications team’s recap series to highlight our trip to Palestine in the summer of 2022.

On our second day in Palestine, we woke up in Gaza City to a sparkling view of the Mediterranean Sea and the sounds of people on the sandy beaches not far from our windows. After a quick breakfast of Arabic coffee, hummus, pita bread, and scrambled eggs, our team headed south to Rafah to visit the logistics warehouse in charge of providing emergency response during crises.

from a to z

The UNRWA area staff we met with are tasked with providing materials such as food, cleaning supplies, and bedding to refugees sheltering in UNRWA schools during Israeli military assaults. One of our UNRWA colleagues, Amal, spoke about the logistical process of providing this assistance and how they managed to decrease their response time from 72 to 24 hours during the assault last May – all to ensure people had a safe place to go when the airstrikes hit. We finished our tour of the warehouse facility in a garden surrounded by brightly colored flowers and places to rest, with cookies and mint tea awaiting us on tables under the shade of a large umbrella. This kind of warm hospitality and generosity is so typically Palestinian and something I will never forget.

a safe living space

Our ever-patient and wonderful UNRWA colleague, Khaled, then told us it was time to head to our next site visit in Deir al Balah. Once there, we were greeted by the brilliant minds behind one of UNRWA’s pilot projects in Gaza focused on camp improvement. After three years of construction, we stood in a courtyard surrounded by newly finished apartment buildings with green space and a playground in the center. These buildings serve as a relocation for refugees living in the nearby camps as their current living spaces are considered too cramped and devoid of the green space every person is entitled to. 

As we walked through the building and into one of the apartments, it was evident that these new buildings would offer not only more room for families, but a space for community and gatherings filled with food, music, and joy. With the challenges of the pilot project ironed out, the next phase of this critical UNRWA project will begin and new buildings will go up within a year’s time, ensuring more Palestine refugees have access to a safe living space. Again upon our departure, we were met with numerous soft drinks and a tray of delicious desserts ranging from date-filled ma'amoul to fudgy chocolate cookies.

food assistance

With the precious ma’amoul safely secured on my lap, we drove to Bureij, located in the center of Gaza, to see one of UNRWA’s most integral programs in action – food assistance. We pulled up to a building with the signature UNRWA blue doors on a busy street and stepped inside a large and airy warehouse. Refugees sat and waited to speak with UNRWA staff in the small office to the right as I took in the massive room, filled to the brim with powdery white bags of flour, lentils, chickpeas, and rice. Standing in the warehouse, we saw the other end of the large room where quarterly food baskets are loaded onto moving carts and given directly to refugees on the other side. One of our UNRWA colleagues described the logistics behind their process at the food distribution center and we all smiled when he talked of the innovation they used during the height of COVID, calling the long cart that’s pushed from one side of the door to the other a GMC or “Gaza-made cart”. 

On a sobering note, we listened as he shared that despite UNRWA providing food assistance to over 1.2 million people across Gaza (more than half the population), some 200,000 more remain on a metaphorical waitlist to receive this assistance. Despite qualifying for the food, families wait in limbo as UNRWA struggles to close the perpetual gap in funding that started with the Trump administration's defunding of the Agency in 2018 and widened with the emergence of COVID-19 and the devastating effects of two military assaults. Without additional support from donor countries and individuals, UNRWA’s services to refugees across the Middle East are continually at-risk.

bittersweet

While this is my fourth year working with UNRWA USA, this was my first time in Palestine. Seeing UNRWA’s work in action and meeting the inspirational area staff working tirelessly to meet the needs of a community living under blockade is an experience I will hold close to my heart for the rest of my life. I only hope that in sharing our team’s experience this summer other Americans are moved to do more in support of Palestine refugees in whatever way they can.