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Geneva -
The Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia has announced a donation of US$ 20 million to the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)
through its Fund for Development in response to the Agency’s
Emergency Appeal for the occupied Palestinian territory.
This generous
contribution will fund a major re- housing project in Rafah in
southern Gaza for many of the thousands of refugees who have lost
their homes during Israeli demolition operations in the town’s
refugee camp during the last four years.
Using the Saudi Fund
donation, the Agency will be able to provide more than 4,000
homeless
refugees in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip over 700 new homes.
UNRWA will also use the
funding to develop new public facilities for education, health and
social services and the
infrastructure necessary for the project. This new community will be
built on land donated by the Palestinian Authority to the Agency.
This project is also
expected to generate several hundred thousand working-days, thus
alleviate the extremely difficult job situation in the Gaza Strip.
According to UNRWA’s
statistics, by the end of December 2004, a total of 2,991 buildings,
home to over 28,483 people, had been demolished or damaged beyond
repair in the Gaza Strip since the start of the strife. The Agency’s
emergency rehousing programme has so far only had the funds to build
or start planning 903 replacement shelters.
A memorandum of
understanding between UNRWA and the Saudi Fund for Development was
signed today in Geneva between Mr Yousef Ibrahim Al-Bassam, the Vice
Chairman and Managing Director of the Saudi Fund and Mr Peter
Hansen, UNRWA’s Commissioner-General.
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