URNWA official lauds Kuwait aid for Gaza

Director of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) operations in Gaza, Bo Schack, has praised the contributions being made by Kuwait and other Arab Gulf countries to help Gazans undergoing untold suffering under a 10-year Israeli blockade. “Our exchange and association with Kuwait is one that is increasing. The engagement is not only about funding, it is also about ideas, issues and addressing concerns in education and the health sector,” he said in an interview in Brussels.

Shack noted that the Gulf countries are primarily focusing in supporting in reconstruction, in building schools and renovating health facilities in Gaza. In addition to that, there is also an increasing support to UNRWA’s core budget; the one that pays the salary of teachers and the staff and running of the Organization, he clarified. “The focus for many years from the Gulf states has indeed been for us absolutely indispensable in the context of making sure that we are able to open a new school every month and that we have been renovating our medical facilities and that we have been building new ones,” said Shack, a Danish lawyer by profession. The UNRWA official expressed concern that the socio-economic situation, and the lack of prospect in Gaza could lead to a more violent expression by the youth generation and that could descend to further risk. —KUNA