What is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)?

About United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA):

• It is a subsidiary agency created by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1949.
• Objective: To provide relief, health and education services for Palestinians who lost both their homes and their means of livelihood during the Arab-Israeli wars following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
• Headquarters:
  • Beginning operations in 1950, UNRWA was originally headquartered in Beirut but was moved to Vienna in 1978. 
  • Following the conclusion of the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s, the General Assembly moved the agency to the Gaza Strip in 1996 to demonstrate the General Assembly’s commitment to the Arab-Israeli peace process. 
• In the absence of a solution to the Palestine refugee problem, the General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA's mandate, most recently extending it until 30 June 2026.
• Services: The agency’s services encompass education, health care, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance, and emergency assistance, including in times of armed conflict.
• Fields of operations: It provides services in its five fields of operations: Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, including the East of Jerusalem.
• It supports more than five million registered Palestinian refugees, and their patrilineal descendants, who fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 Palestine War, as well as those who fled or were expelled during and following the 1967 Six-Day War.
• Funding:
  • It is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions from UN Member States.
  • UNRWA also receives some funding from the Regular Budget of the UN, which is used mostly for international staffing costs.
• Its chief officer, the commissioner-general—the only leader of a UN agency to report directly to the General Assembly—is appointed by the UN secretary-general with the approval of an Advisory Commission.