'Sadly still needed'
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| Karen Abu Zayd |
Later this month, Karen Abu Zayd will end her mandate as commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which looks after the destiny of over four million Palestinian refugees.
In Cairo this week as part of an emergency appeal for financial assistance for UNRWA's operations, Abu Zayd launched the appeal from the headquarters of the Arab League, where the organisation's secretary-general, Amr Moussa, paid tribute to what he called Abu Zayd's "remarkable" efforts to speak up for the rights of Palestinian refugees.
For Abu Zayd, this last appeal, to be followed by others launched by her successor, was "a last warning call" on behalf of the refugees.
The appeal asked for a little over $323 million to cater for the immediate needs of refugees in the occupied Palestinian territories in Gaza and the West Bank. These basic needs include food, healthcare and the elimination of environmental hazards.
UNRWA, Abu Zayd said, faces serious financial constraints that are undermining its performance at an exceptionally challenging time, with Palestinian refugees, especially in Gaza, suffering from the heavy-handed closures that Israel has imposed on the increasingly impoverished Strip.
"There must be a relaxation of the closures," Abu Zayd said.
As part of her work with UNRWA, Abu Zayd has attended to the needs of Palestinian refugees in the occupied Palestinian territories, as well as in neighbouring Arab countries including Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly in UNRWA's humbly furnished office in Garden City in Cairo, Abu Zayd recalled her early months as UNRWA commissioner-general with affection, remembering that she arrived in Rafah in the wake of an Israeli attack that had demolished Palestinian houses.
"I will always remember a lady who called me from amidst the rubble of her house to show what the Israeli raids had done," Abu Zayd said.
For Abu Zayd, these were among the hardest moments of her career -- having to bear witness to the suffering of refugees deprived of the little they had in the first place.
Yet, "somehow my best moments as UNRWA commissioner-general were also wonderful moments," Abu Zayd said, adding that it was moments such as these when a refugee still had the will to describe her personal tragedy in detail that showed "the real strength of the Palestinian people" living under occupation in refugee camps.
It was also at this time, and with the outbreak of the second Intifada, that Abu Zayd took up her mandate, succeeding another prominent UNRWA commissioner-general, Peter Hansen.
Abu Zayd looked back on years marked by hard work, mediation between the Palestinians and the Israeli government, and making contacts with governments and others worldwide in order to generate funds to meet the needs of refugees who "have been suffering for six decades with dignity as a result of the failure to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."
During her years as head of UNRWA, Abu Zayd was never short on carefully worded criticism of Israeli violations of international law towards the Palestinian refugees.
Most recently, she spoke up against the Israeli demolition of Palestinian houses in occupied East Jerusalem. Standing before one of the targeted houses in Sheikh Jarrah, Abu Zayd said that "to date four of the 28 families have lost their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, affecting over 55 people, including 20 children."
"At present, a further eight families are under direct threat of forced eviction, having been served with orders to vacate their homes, potentially affecting as many as another 120 people."
She added that in all such incidents Israeli "settlers have taken over, with the protection and assistance of the Israeli authorities. But the numbers alone do not convey the human suffering and trauma that have been the hallmark of these forced evictions."
Nevertheless, Abu Zayd's words have all too often fallen on deaf ears in the international community. She has never been short on criticism of the role that this has played in prolonging the suffering of millions of Palestinian refugees since the Nakba in 1948.
The international community, she said, has not done enough to find a fair settlement to the conflict, including resolving the issue of the Palestinian refugees in line with the relevant UN resolutions that stipulate repatriation or compensation.
She also blamed the international community for failing to put pressure on the Israeli government to allow reconstruction materials into Gaza, in order to carry out desperately needed reconstruction of the Strip after damage sustained during the three-week Israeli aggression.
Abu Zayd is sceptical about the chances of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip being able to return to anything like normal life any time soon, given the Israeli blockade, the insufficient humanitarian assistance, and what she says, using carefully chosen words, are the "unfair conditions imposed by the Quartet that leave room for question marks over compatibility with international law."
Abu Zayd criticises accusations of terrorism made against those living in Gaza to indicate opposition to Hamas's control of the Strip since June 2007. "Unfortunately, once you call someone a 'terrorist,' you can do anything without much observation of international law," she said.
Compounding the suffering of Gaza, Abu Zayd says carefully, is the fact that the Rafah border linking Gaza to Egypt "has not always been a good border." However, she credits the Egyptian government with the "periodical opening of the Rafah border," adding that the Egyptian authorities "have been especially good this year."
Yet, she does not hide her concern at the possible impact of "the wall" that she says the Egyptian authorities are building on the border with Gaza, "part underground and part above ground," in combination with sensitive detectors to block the construction of the tunnels that the Palestinians use to smuggle "basic goods, including food and medicine," into the besieged Strip.
Abu Zayd said that she shared her concerns with the Egyptian officials she met during her four-day visit to Cairo. "They were reassuring and said it was only going to be a wall across 10 kilometres" of the little-over 14 kilometre border between Egypt and Gaza.
For Abu Zayd, the wall could reduce the flow of commodities into Gaza. Even if some of the tunnels are built very deep, they could still be detected and shut down. This, she said, would be "problematic" because if the world wants to end smuggling into Gaza then it has to find a way to get Israel to end the blockade and allow access for desperately needed humanitarian assistance.
Abu Zayd does not throw the blame on the Egyptian authorities. "They also have their concerns, and it is fair to say that they cannot be expected to carry the responsibilities" that Israel should be honouring in any case as the occupying power.
"There is a role for the international community to play there as well," Abu Zayd stressed.
Brought up in Chicago in the US and married to a Sudanese man, Abu Zayd is now contemplating her next project after a lifetime catering to refugees in different parts of the world. She was on the verge of tears as she spoke about her days in the occupied Palestinian territories and the Palestinians. For her, the territories "were home" and the Palestinians family.
Today, Abu Zayd is moving on, saddened in many ways that she will no longer be there to reach out to those who need assistance and saddened, too, that "after 60 years UNRWA is still needed."
Abu Zayd has been honoured by many organisations in recognition of the work she has done in the face of apparently endless political and financial challenges.
For Abu Zayd, however, the most touching tribute has come in the waving, frail hands of elderly Palestinian ladies and the bright smiles of Palestinian children who are third-generation refugees.
Does she feel fulfilled at the end of her career in humanitarian assistance?
"A colleague from UNRWA sent me a farewell e-mail, and he told me, 'you have failed with distinction.' I think this is exactly right," Abu Zayd said with a sad smile.
Arab diplomats who have met Abu Zayd agree that she has done everything she possibly could do and more to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian refugees, always speaking out bravely for their rights.
However, they also agree that the diligent endeavours and heartfelt commitment of this dedicated lady alone could never be enough to relieve the pain that Israel is mercilessly inflicting on the Palestinian people.
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