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UNRWA job cuts in Gaza 'a massacre for employees'
[Al Jazeera] Raffat Abu Hashim was working in his office at the United Nations...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) branch in Khan Younis, southern Gazoo Strip, when he received the dreaded email from the staff portal. His contract will not be renewed when it ends in December. "I never imagined this would happen to me," the 53-year-old father of six told Al Jazeera. "I've served in UNRWA for 32 years, when I was hired in January 1987 as an emergency clerk. I'm deeply shocked," he said, mopping up beads of sweat on his forehead. Abu Hashim didn't tell his family - who depend on him as the sole breadwinner - that he was facing impending unemployment. "I think of them, of my children who are in school and university, and about the loans I owe the bank, and other financial commitments," he said. "How can I tell them that I won't have a job anymore? My work is the backbone in their life." Suspension of UNRWA contracts The US government announced at the beginning of the year it would slash its funding of $365m to $65m, after President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... accused the Paleostinians of being ungrateful for the millions of dollars in aid. "We pay the Paleostinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect," Trump tweeted, a month after his controversial recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a move that led the Paleostinian Authority to condemn the US as no longer being an impartial peace broker. "With the Paleostinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?" More than half of Gazoo's two million population is dependent on aid from UNRWA, which offered support for seven decades in food supply, healthcare, social services, employment and access to education. Currently, the blockaded strip suffers from a 44 percent unemployment rate. Last Wednesday, the agency fired a further 113 employees, all because of the United States' 80 percent budget cut. Furthermore, UNRWA announced the contracts of 1,000 of its employees in the Gazoo Strip - Abu Hashim among them - will not have their contracts renewed. This includes the termination of the mental health programme, which employs 430 people. Posted by: Fred 2018-07-30 |
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