Canada will provide $62.5 million in aid for Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Jordan
Canada will provide $62.5 million in aid for Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Jordan, the Canadian International Development Ministry announced on Friday.
In a statement, Canadian International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said up to $50 million will be provided for over two years for Palestinian refugees through the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
The announcement comes after the U.S. State Department stated in September that Washington would “no longer commit funding” to UNRWA.
The U.S. had been UNRWA's largest contributor by far, providing it with $350 million annually -- roughly one-quarter of the agency's overall budget.
Established in 1949, UNRWA provides critical aid to Palestinian refugees in the blockaded Gaza Strip, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
Israel on Friday morning allowed more Qatar-funded fuel shipments into the blockaded Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom commercial crossing.“The Israeli authorities opened the crossing to allow trucks laden with Qatari fuel into the strip,” a Palestinian security source told Anadolu Agency.The crossing is usually shut on Fridays and Saturdays to coincide with the weekend in Israel.The source, who spoke anonymously due to restrictions on speaking to media, said a total of four trucks carrying 150,000 liters of fuel had entered the Gaza Strip en route to the enclave’s sole functioning power plant.Palestinian man dies in Israeli jailTuesday saw a first pair of fuel-loaded trucks entering Gaza from Israel through Kerem Shalom.On the same day, Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said that 15 fuel-laden trucks would soon begin entering Gaza on a daily basis.Dujarric also expressed the UN secretary-general’s appreciation for Qatar’s $60-million contribution to the fuel-shipment scheme, which is ostensibly aimed at alleviating the difficult living conditions faced by blockaded Gaza’s Palestinian inhabitants.In final tweets, Khashoggi alluded to Palestine, SyriaOn Tuesday, the Ramallah-based Palestinian government -- in reference to the fuel shipments -- announced its “total rejection” of what it described as “suspicious projects”.According to Ramallah, the fuel shipments are part of a scheme aimed at wrecking Palestinian unity by uncoupling Gaza from the West Bank, “thus derailing the Palestinian national cause”.Last week, Israeli daily Haaretz reported that a deal had been struck with Qatar by which the latter would finance fuel procurements for Gaza.Since 2007, when Hamas seized the Gaza Strip from rival Palestinian faction Hamas, the coastal enclave has groaned under an Israeli blockade that has deprived its two million inhabitants of many basic commodities.Hamas eyes truce with Israel in return for end of siege
More trucks laden with Qatari fuel enter blockaded Gaza
In September, the foreign ministers of Jordan, Sweden, Turkey, Japan, and Germany, as well as the EU foreign policy chief, held a ministerial meeting in New York in order to mobilize financial and political support for the agency.
Canada will also provide up to $12.5 million for Right to Play International, a Toronto-based education organization for children in need, according to the statement.
Around $40 million of Canada's funding “will contribute to meeting the basic education, health and livelihood needs of millions of Palestinian refugees, especially women and children,” the statement added.
“Furthermore, up to $10 million of Canada’s support will provide emergency life-saving assistance to more than 460,000 Palestinian refugees in Syria and Lebanon, through UNRWA’s Emergency Appeal for the Syria regional crisis,” the statement said.
“This support will help to send hundreds of thousands of children to school, train teachers and support over a hundred health clinics,” the statement quoted Bibeau.
“This new funding to UNRWA is urgently needed, and it will bring some predictability to the agency as the needs on the ground are increasing,” she added.
More trade deals like the recently concluded agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico, would help reduce uncertainty related to trade and economic growth, St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said on Thursday.The pact, called North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 2.0, struck earlier this month, has yet to be ratified."This is very good news, because it shows that despite the ups and down of negotiations, you can reach a conclusion ...on trade relations," Bullard told a panel at the International Monetary Fund annual meetings in Indonesia."I hope we can get deals like this elsewhere and we might get the uncertainty down on this issue," he said.The IMF has pointed to global trade tensions as one of the main reasons undermining global growth prospects.
Fed's Bullard hopes for more trade deals like NAFTA 2.0 to reduce uncertainty
Wissam Abd al-Majid Shalaldeh, a 28-year-old Palestinian man, died Friday in Israel’s Ayalon Prison, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Prisoners Society.According to the NGO, the Israeli authorities informed Shalaldeh’s family -- by phone -- of his death, the reasons for which remain unclear.A father of four from the village of Saer near the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, Shalaldeh was arrested by the Israeli authorities in 2015 for illegal weapons possession and slapped with a seven-year jail term.The Prisoners Society held Israel entirely responsible for Shalaldeh’s death, noting that he was the fourth Palestinian this year to die in Israeli police custody.Roughly 6,500 Palestinians are currently being held by the Israeli authorities, including dozens of women and scores of minors, according to Palestinian figures.Hamas eyes truce with Israel in return for end of siege198 martyred by Israel since Gaza protests beganIsrael releases former Hamas MP
Palestinian man dies in Israeli jail