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U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 1999 - Gaza Strip and West Bank

UNRWA registered 746,000 refugees in the Gaza Strip and 542,000 in the West Bank in 1997. After Jordan, the largest number of UNRWA-registered refugees lived in the Gaza Strip (21.8 percent), followed by the West Bank (15.9 percent). In the West Bank, only 26 percent of the registered refugees lived in camps. In the Gaza Strip, on the other hand, 55 percent of registered Palestinian refugees lived in eight refugee camps, the highest percentage of camp residents in any of UNRWA's fields of operation.

The year saw a significant deterioration in the peace process, the negative consequences of which permeated life in the Palestinian territories.

Peace Process Deteriorates

Although 1997 began on a hopeful note in January with the first significant diplomatic breakthrough between Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud government in Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) on the redeployment of Israeli troops from the West Bank city of Hebron, relations between the two sides deteriorated precipitously in March and did not recover meaningfully thereafter. Other planned land transfers and agreements scheduled to be completed during the interim phase of the peace process remained stalled for the rest of the year.

With no progress on these modest steps toward peaceful coexistence, the prospects of peacefully resolving the thornier problems in the future relationship between Israel and the Palestinians, including the status of Jerusalem, Jewish settlements, and Palestinian refugees, appeared remote at year's end. Final status negotiations on these issues were adjourned as soon as they began in May 1996 and have not been reconvened.

Neither the Multilateral Working Group on Refugee Affairs, established by the 1993 Oslo agreement to resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees who fled Palestine in 1948 and their progeny, nor the Quadripartite Committee on the Repatriation of the 1967 Displaced Persons, also created by the Oslo agreement, made any progress in 1997.

The first major setback to the peace process came in late February when the Israeli government approved plans to proceed with the construction of a 6,500-home Israeli settlement, Har Homa, on disputed land known to Palestinians as Jebel Abu Ghneim in traditionally Arab East Jerusalem. The decision to break ground on the Har Homa settlement, which reversed the previous Labor government's policy that had frozen the construction of new Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, contributed to Palestinian disillusionment with the peace process and incited Palestinian protests throughout the West Bank during the spring and early summer.

The issue of Israeli troop redeployments from the West Bank coincided with the start of construction on Har Homa. On March 7, the Israeli government disclosed that it would cede partial or full control of 9 percent of the West Bank in the first of three remaining land transfers mandated by the September 28, 1995 Interim Agreement (called "Oslo II") and reaffirmed by the Hebron Protocol of January 15, 1997. Because the Israeli proposal fell far short of the transfer of 30 percent of the West Bank that Palestinian negotiators had called for, the PA rejected it and broke off talks on the issue in protest.

On March 21, a Palestinian suicide bomber attacked an outdoor cafe in Tel Aviv, killing three Israelis and injuring 48. That attack, Har Homa, and the Israeli position on land transfers converged to send the peace process into free fall.

After the bombing, the Israeli government accused the PA of fomenting violence and reneging on its security commitments. Prime Minister Netanyahu demanded that the PA take all necessary measures to prevent terrorism as a precondition for any further Israeli troop withdrawals from the occupied territories. The PA, for its part, suspended most security cooperation with the Israeli government to protest Israeli settlement policies and the halt on troop redeployments from the territories.

Two more suicide bombings during the year further aggravated relations and stymied efforts to renew negotiations. The most deadly attack came on July 30 when two suicide bombers attacked an open-air market in Jerusalem, killing 16 and wounding 178. On September 4, three suicide bombers detonated themselves in a Jerusalem pedestrian mall, killing 8 and injuring 181. With U.S. prompting, Israeli and PA negotiators resumed contacts in late September, but remained deadlocked on key issues at year's end.

Population Zones

Israel continued to control most of the land in the West Bank and a substantial portion of the Gaza Strip in 1997, but delegated to the PA varying degrees of control over the areas where Palestinian populations lived.

This patchwork was created by Oslo II, which established three zones: Zone A, consisting of large Palestinian population centers; Zone B, other Palestinian residential areas, mostly villages; and Zone C, Israeli settlements, strategic military sites in the Jordan Valley, and large tracts of sparsely populated rural land.

Nearly all of the Gaza Strip Palestinian population and about one-third of the West Bank population live in Zone A, where the PA is responsible for both internal security and civil authority. About two-thirds of the West Bank population live in Zone B, which covers about 27 percent of West Bank land. In Zone B, Palestinian police are allowed to operate, but Israel maintains overall control over security.

About 70 percent of the territory of the West Bank and 40 percent of the territory of the Gaza Strip are in Zone C, where the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) maintain complete authority. In 1997, there were 140 Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, in which about 134,000 settlers resided (128,500 in the West Bank; 5,500 in the Gaza Strip), according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics.

During 1997, ten refugee camps were located in Zone A; six in Zone B; one, Kalandia, in Zone C; one, Shu'fat, within the expanded municipal boundaries of Jerusalem; and one, Askar, spanning Zones A and B.

PLO Refugee Affairs

The Palestinian Authority worked to consolidate its hold over territories within its jurisdiction during 1997. In addition to work within PA-administered areas, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) also created the Department for Refugee Affairs to replace the old Department of Returnees Affairs, which, since 1987, had been based in Tunis.

The new Department of Refugee Affairs, established in November 1996, works on issues related to the Palestinian diaspora as well as with the refugees living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Since the department's mandate is broader than the territories, it was located within the PLO rather than as a ministry within the PA. The department, headed by Dr. Assad Abdul Rahman, the chief of the Palestinian delegation to the working group on refugees as part of the final status peace negotiations, deals bilaterally with host governments where Palestinian refugees reside, and works closely with UNRWA.

In 1997, the Department of Refugee Affairs appointed regional coordinators to identify needs and coordinate services with UNRWA and camp residents in the refugee camps in the portions of the West Bank and Gaza Strip administered by the PA. Refugee camp residents also elected camp committees to serve as points of contact to the Department of Refugee Affairs and to UNRWA.

In December, Abdul Rahman announced plans to create a Higher Committee on Refugee and Camp Affairs. The committee, to be chaired by Yasser Arafat and to include PA ministers responsible for health, public works, water and electricity, as well as the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, is to oversee the work of non-UNRWA health clinics and to augment UNRWA services.

The new ministry's headquarters is located near the new UNRWA headquarters in the Gaza Strip. In July 1996, UNRWA transferred its Vienna headquarters to that site. Major UNRWA departments were located in Gaza City, together with UNRWA's commissioner general. Other program offices, such as education, health and relief, and social services, were located in Amman, Jordan.

Travel Restrictions

Although the PA issues passports and other travel documents to the Palestinians residing in the areas under its jurisdiction, during most of 1997, the Israeli authorities prevented most Palestinians from traveling into Israel or East Jerusalem from the West Bank or Gaza Strip without specific travel permits.

Oslo II provides for "free passage" between the Gaza Strip and West Bank, but no such corridor was agreed upon in 1997, and movement between the two was difficult. Israeli authorities rarely gave Gazans permission to travel to the West Bank, and made it difficult for Palestinian residents of Jerusalem to travel to PA-controlled areas of the West Bank. Travel restrictions were particularly severe for young Palestinian males, whom the authorities considered security risks. Although Israeli troops redeployed out of the major population centers of the West Bank, they still exercised control over the roads connecting those West Bank towns.

For Palestinians, movement in, out, and within the Gaza Strip and West Bank has been difficult – and at times impossible – since Israel imposed a general closure on the occupied territories in March 1993. Since then, Israel has not allowed Palestinians to travel from the territories into Israel (or Arab East Jerusalem) without a permit. In 1997, it was often very difficult for Palestinians to enter Israel for employment, health needs, study, or visits.

Twice in 1997, for two-week periods following the July 30 and September 4 suicide bombings, Israel imposed "internal closures" within the West Bank, preventing Palestinians from traveling between villages and towns, including within the areas under PA jurisdiction.

In effect, internal closure meant that residents of all 465 towns and villages in the West Bank were under town arrest with no one allowed to enter or leave their locality. Essentially, commerce, higher educational activities, and much health care came to a halt during the internal closure. The Israeli authorities prevented food and medical supplies from entering the territories.

Israel also imposed targeted closures on two West Bank villages during the year. When it was learned that the suicide bomber who carried out the March 21 Tel Aviv attack came from the village of Surif, the Israeli authorities sealed off the village, forbidding residents to leave and visitors to enter for seven weeks, and enforcing a strict curfew.

Authorities also imposed a targeted closure on Assira Shamaliyya after they determined that four of the five suicide bombers responsible for the July 30 and September 4 Jerusalem attacks came from that village. Israeli authorities also razed four homes in Surif and two homes in Assira Shamaliyya belonging to relatives of suicide bombers. Authorities permanently sealed two more homes in Assira Shamaliyya.

In addition to "internal closures," there were "total closures," which completely blocked access to Israel or East Jerusalem from all or parts of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. During total closures, Israeli authorities revoked all Palestinian permits for travel to Israel. This happened during holidays, and in the aftermath of terrorist attacks, such as the March 21, July 30, and September 4 suicide bombings. Total closures were imposed for longer periods and more strictly enforced than in previous years. After both the July 30 and September 4 suicide bombings, total closures remained effective for two weeks after the initial closures had been lifted.

Palestinians often do not travel abroad for fear of being denied re-entry to the Gaza Strip or the West Bank. Israeli authorities do not permit adult Palestinian males traveling to Jordan to return less than nine months after leaving, yet generally forbid them from returning permanently if they spend more than three years abroad. The Israeli authorities require all Palestinians residing in the areas under Israeli control to obtain travel permits before traveling to other countries. Visitors to the PA self-rule areas, such as from Egypt to Gaza or Jordan to Jericho, must first obtain Israeli visas.

UNRWA's Work Hampered

Travel restrictions also hampered UNRWA's work. During its 1996-97 reporting year, UNRWA said that closures and curfews obstructed beneficiaries from receiving UNRWA services and prevented UNRWA staff from reporting to work. Further impeding UNRWA's work, Israel also reportedly refused permits to many of UNRWA's local staff to travel between the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as between the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Israel. UNRWA said that the number of local employees holding travel permits declined from 487 in February 1996 to 320 in June 1997, despite an actual increase in local UNRWA staff.

During UNRWA's 1996-97 reporting year, the PA arrested 18 UNRWA staff in the Gaza Strip, down from 93 the previous year. In the West Bank, the PA arrested and detained 9 UNRWA staff between July 1, 1996 and June 30, 1997, compared with 13 the previous reporting year. Israeli authorities arrested 5 UNRWA staff, compared with 3 in the previous reporting period.

Neither the Palestinian Authority nor the Israelis provided sufficient information for UNRWA to ascertain whether its employees were arrested while performing their official duties. Although PA officials in the Gaza Strip blocked UNRWA from visiting its detained staff, both the PA and Israeli officials in the West Bank allowed UNRWA access to detainees.

Housing Demolitions

Along with Israeli settlement policy, the Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes built without permits remained a highly inflammatory issue during 1997. This was especially the case in traditionally Arab East Jerusalem, which Palestinians wish to claim as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Although Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 war, East Jerusalem's fate is to be decided in final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

On August 13, the Israeli authorities reportedly demolished five Palestinian homes on the edge of Shu'fat refugee camp, within the Jerusalem municipality. Several other homes were demolished in the West Bank on the same day.

In an August 25 letter to the Israeli ambassador to the United States, USCR questioned a policy that "appears to restrict building permits for Palestinians at the same time that it encourages Jewish settlement in Jerusalem municipality and the West Bank through subsidized construction, low mortgage rates, and low-interest loans." Pointing out that the difficulty of obtaining building permits and the overcrowding in Shu'fat camp is a mix that leads to unauthorized building, USCR urged the Israeli government to liberalize its policy on building permits for Palestinians. USCR also questioned the timing of the demolitions. "Taking place during the visit of U.S. envoy Dennis Ross, this action seems provocative and potentially damaging to an already fragile peace process," USCR remarked.

In a September 18 response, the Israeli embassy denied any discriminatory use of building restrictions against Arab residents of East Jerusalem. "Demolitions are a legal and not a punitive policy which occur when an Arab or Jew builds a house without a permit on public lands," the Israeli embassy wrote.

A variety of reports contradict the Israeli embassy's position, however. An article written by a city planner for Jerusalem published in the Journal of Palestine Studies in mid-1997 alleged that some 21,000 Arab families need new housing and cannot get licenses to build because Israeli zoning restrictions severely limit the amount of Palestinian-owned land that can be used for residential purposes.

Because few Palestinian East Jerusalem residents own land approved for residential building, only about 150 Palestinians apply for, and receive, building permits annually. In contrast, the municipality issues building permits to about 3,000 Jews each year. Between 1993 and 1995, Israeli authorities demolished 220 Arab structures in Jerusalem because of illegal construction, compared with 39 Jewish structures during the same period, according to the article.

Refugee Status

One irony of the establishment of the Palestinian Authority was the continued existence of Palestinian refugee camps under its jurisdiction and the continued refugee status of Palestinians living under a Palestinian governing authority.

UNRWA-registered refugees in the Gaza Strip and those in parts of the West Bank under Palestinian self-rule retained their refugee status because of their origin inside present-day Israel and because of the relevant UN General Assembly resolutions defining the nature of the Palestinian refugee problem and solutions for Palestinian refugees. These resolutions, most adopted prior to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, create a unique treatment for Palestinian refugees that differs from the approach found in the Refugee Convention.

The key General Assembly resolution, Res. 194, provides only two solutions: repatriation for those refugees "wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbors," or compensation for those choosing not to return.

In Resolution 302 (IV), the UN General Assembly created UNRWA and assigned to it the task of caring for Palestinian refugees. UNRWA defined Palestinian refugees as persons who resided in Palestine two years prior to the outbreak of hostilities in 1948, who lost their homes and livelihoods as a result of that war.

When the UN adopted the Refugee Convention and established UNHCR, it excluded those falling within the UNRWA mandate from being covered under UNHCR's mandate. In effect, this means that UNHCR does not concern itself with (or count) Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, or the West Bank and Gaza Strip, although it may assist Palestinian refugees outside the UNRWA-mandate area. Therefore, being under the authority of a Palestinian political entity (which could represent the cessation of refugee status for other refugee groups covered by the UN Refugee Convention and Protocol) does not terminate refugee status for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank who either fled in 1948 from what is now Israel or who are descended from persons who fled at that time.

Even if the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians were considered solely under the terms of the Refugee Convention, however, they would still qualify as refugees. Under the Convention, refugee status ceases once refugees are able to re-avail themselves of the protection of their state of nationality. Palestinian refugees residing in the area have not been able to do so.

Although a Palestinian Authority has been established in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, it does not have sovereignty. The Oslo and Cairo agreements explicitly state that during the interim period (before final status has been agreed upon), the territory of the Palestinian Authority is not a state.

Although the PA issues passports, it does not confer citizenship. To obtain a Palestinian passport, an applicant must produce an identity card, and Israel controls the issuance of identity cards. Israel continues to be the occupying power under international humanitarian law. The territories – even the Palestinian "self-rule" areas – remain subject to Israeli military government, and, according to Oslo II, Israel retains "the overriding responsibility for security."

The Oslo accords made an important distinction between refugees who fled Palestine in 1948, and their descendants, and persons displaced by the 1967 war, mostly from the West Bank to Jordan, which, at the time, claimed sovereignty on both sides of the Jordan River.

This distinction, while arguably useful politically, is based on a misnomer, in USCR's view: the West Bank Palestinians who fled to the east bank of the Jordan River were indeed internally displaced in 1967; their status, however, should have changed from "displaced" to "refugee" when King Hussein rescinded Jordan's claims of sovereignty over the West Bank in 1988. The distinction was maintained, however, to distinguish between those refugees whose goal was return to Israel itself (the 1948 refugees) and those who were seeking to return only to the Israeli-occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip (the 1967 displaced).

Negotiations

Both Israel and the Palestinians judged that it would be easier to resolve the situation of the persons displaced from the occupied territories as a result of the 1967 war rather than those who were displaced from what became Israel in 1948. Therefore, the Oslo accords maintained the approach started in Camp David in 1978 of tackling the issue of the 1967 displaced people first and deferring until the "permanent status" talks the attempt to resolve the issue of the 1948 refugees. As a result, many refugees who trace their exile to 1948 have felt marginalized by the peace process.

Despite the decision to begin with the issue of displaced persons, by the end of 1997, no agreement existed. The Israelis differed with the Palestinians and representatives of the Arab states on both the definition and number of displaced persons.

Israel contended that the number is between 200,000 and 300,000 and limited its count to those who fled as a direct result of the 1967 war. The Arab parties, on the other hand, put the number between 800,000 and 1,000,000. They also included in their count persons who were outside the West Bank and Gaza Strip before the outbreak of hostilities as well as Palestinians who left or were forced to leave the West Bank and Gaza Strip because of Israeli military measures after 1967, and were not allowed to return.

The Palestinians and Arab countries also raised the issue of a group known as "latecomers." These are people, numbering about 100,000, whom Israel had registered as residents after the 1967 war, and had given permission to work or travel abroad. Because they failed to return in time to renew their re-entry visas, the Israelis revoked their documents and refused to allow them to return.

The Arab parties continued to insist on the unconditional return of all displaced persons from the West Bank and Gaza Strip regardless of the reasons for their displacement. Israel's willingness to consider allowing the return of displaced persons was much narrower, and Israeli officials were adamant in their refusal to consider readmitting persons who had been expelled for political or security reasons.

At its February 1996 meeting, the Quadripartite Committee on the Repatriation of the 1967 Displaced Persons did agree on six sources for records that could be used to establish identity of displaced persons, including: UNRWA; the Red Cross; the Jordanian Department of Palestinian Affairs; the Egyptian population registry for Palestinian refugees after 1967; the Israeli census of the West Bank and Gaza conducted in 1967, as well as the Israeli population register; and the PLO.

With no progress made since February 1996, the two sides remain far apart on the weight they would accord the various, and no doubt conflicting, sources on the numbers of 1967 displaced. They remain equally distant on defining who would qualify.

The gap in the parties' positions on the 1948 refugees is even wider. The Arabs insisted on the "right of return" as proclaimed in UN Resolution 194 with its choice of either repatriation or compensation for those refugees not wishing to repatriate. The Israelis rejected UN Resolution 194 as a basis for discussion, saying that the "right of return" is incompatible with Israel's right of self-determination. Israel also insists that discussions of compensation be based on the principle of reciprocity, taking into account Jews expelled from Arab countries as a result of the establishment of the State of Israel.

Palestinian Economy Stagnates

Closures, curfews, and other restrictions on work and travel to Israel and within and between the Gaza Strip and West Bank hurt the economy of the Palestinian territories during 1997. In the Gaza Strip, unemployment stood at 32 percent for the period from July to September. In the West Bank, it was about 18 percent. The growing trend in Israel to supplant Palestinian laborers with workers from other countries has compounded the bleak employment outlook for many Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip residents. Since 1993, Israeli employers have permanently replaced some 70,000 Palestinians with Romanian and Thai workers.

The Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Occupied Territories (UNSCO) estimated in September 1997 that periods of total closure resulted in an average loss of $1.35 million in wages to the estimated 51,000 Palestinian workers employed in Israel for each day they were prevented from reaching their jobs. Total closures also resulted in an average daily loss of $1.3 million in export revenue from the Palestinian territories. According to UNSCO, the indirect economic losses resulting from closures were as high or higher than the direct losses.

Particularly problematic for the longer term economic health of the Palestinian territories, closures and other restrictions on work caused investment to languish due to the climate of economic uncertainty they created. Private investment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip had been more than $1 billion in 1992, but it dropped to $255 million in 1996.

The poor economies of the West Bank and Gaza Strip have hurt the average Palestinian's standard of living. Between 1992 and 1996, real per capita GNP fell by an estimated 36 percent. Declining living standards, in turn, have eroded support for the peace process, which, among other things, had promised to improve the material well-being of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Reports of corruption and mismanagement in the PA have added to the popular cynicism. In May 1997, an internal audit found that about 40 percent of the PA's 1996 budget, amounting to $323 million, had been wasted or misused.

UNRWA's Budget Crisis

While the Palestinian economy grew more precarious during 1997, so too did UNRWA's financial situation. Since 1993, UNRWA has struggled to maintain services for a growing refugee population with an annual budget that has remained roughly constant. The cumulative effect, UNRWA reported to the General Assembly in 1997, has been to reduce the average annual expenditure per refugee by 29 percent, from about $110 in 1992 to about $78 in 1996, not accounting for inflation.

Despite austerity measures in place since 1993 and new ones in 1996 and 1997, in the summer of 1997 UNRWA still faced a budgetary shortfall of $20 million for 1997, forcing it to announce a new round of budget cuts. In late August and early September, international donors funded $19 million of the shortfall. While UNRWA was able to cancel the most severe of its latest round of austerity measures – the introduction of school fees and a freeze in hospital reimbursements and referrals – the 15 percent reduction in international staff and the freeze on recruiting extra teachers, among others, remained in place.

Relief and Development

Despite its weakened financial position, UNRWA continued to provide relief and development assistance to refugees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the year.

Since 1993, UNRWA has been engaged in the Peace Implementation Program (PIP) to spur development projects. PIP was designed to focus on income-generation projects (particularly in the Gaza Strip), creation of jobs, and infrastructure development that would build confidence in the peace process. Projects included constructing and upgrading schools, clinics, and community centers, rehabilitating housing, and installing or improving camp sewage and drainage systems.

The centerpiece of PIP development in the Gaza Strip was building a 232-bed European Gaza Hospital. Construction was finished by the end of 1996, but funding shortages held up equipment purchases and the commissioning of the hospital, preventing it from becoming operational during 1997.

UNRWA also continued to provide relief to vulnerable refugees unable to meet their basic needs. Families without a male adult medically fit to work or other means of support were eligible for special hardship assistance – primarily food. As with many other UNRWA projects, however, shortfalls in funding forced the agency to pare back its food support program during the 1996-97 reporting year.

UNRWA also worked to rehabilitate substandard housing for vulnerable refugee families, although rehabilitation needs far outstripped UNRWA's ability to provide such assistance. UNRWA rehabilitated 4,559 houses in all its fields of operation during the 1994-95 reporting period, but it rebuilt only 600 houses during the 1996-97 reporting year because of inadequate funding. Some 25 percent of UNRWA-registered hardship cases in all of UNRWA's fields of operation lived in housing that did not meet minimally acceptable standards.

To promote greater self-sufficiency among the disadvantaged, UNRWA also assisted other vulnerable refugees, many of them women, by offering skills training and organizing group savings-and-loans schemes. UNRWA also sponsored community centers that offered services from sports programs to assistance to refugees with disabilities. Budget cuts devastated social services. UNRWA social workers had such large caseloads that it was impossible to provide adequate counseling.

Despite its budget constraints, UNRWA was able to grant three times as many small-scale loans in the Gaza Strip for the 1996-97 reporting year than the year before. UNRWA awarded 4,452 loans valued at $5.4 million in the Gaza Strip from July 1996 through June 1997. During the same period, the agency granted $1.3 million in loans to 106 small-scale businesses in the West Bank.

In the health field, as in other areas, such as education, UNRWA worked to harmonize its programs with those of the Palestinian Authority with an eye toward transferring all operations to the PA when UNRWA dissolves. Although no actual timeline exists for the dissolution of UNRWA, these activities evidenced UNRWA's commitment to building Palestinian institutional capacity for self-reliance. UNRWA's mandate runs through June 30, 1999.

In UNRWA's 1996-97 reporting year, the refugee population in the Gaza Strip grew by 4.1 percent, a decrease in the rate of growth from the previous year but a faster rate than in any of the other areas of UNRWA operation. The increase reflects a relatively high birth rate and a continuing influx of refugee families to the Gaza Strip.

Growth of the Gaza Strip's refugee population remained evident in school registration, which for the 1996-97 school year rose 8.6 percent above that of 1995-96, which had been 9.3 percent higher than the previous year. The rapid growth in school enrollment since 1994 has required UNRWA to hire an additional 636 contract teachers in the Gaza Strip, but financial troubles caused the agency to give them one-year contracts and pay them less than regular teachers.