US embassy cable - 05AMMAN2474

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 AMMAN 002474 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR PRM AND NEA 
NSC FOR MALINE 
STATE PLEASE PASS TO USAID 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF, PREL, KPAL, KWBG, JO, UNRWA 
SUBJECT: POTENTIAL CUTS TO REFUGEE "SAFETY NETS" IN GAZA 
AND THE WEST BANK 
 
REF: JERUSALEM 961 
 
This cable was cleared by Embassy Tel Aviv and Consulate 
General Jerusalem.  Message is sensitive but unclassified -- 
please protect accordingly. 
 
1. (SBU) SUMMARY: With donors currently providing only 20 
percent of its requested emergency funds (and earmarking them 
heavily to rebuild demolished refugee housing in Rafah), 
UNRWA believes it will be forced to scale back its emergency 
food and employment programs -- which support fully 
three-fourths of the 1.6 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza 
and the West Bank -- in July without an immediate, minimum 
cash injection of USD 13 million.  UNRWA is asking the USG to 
make a significant and early contribution to its current USD 
185.5 million emergency appeal, as it has over the past four 
years, to prevent this potential break in services.  The 
World Bank and OCHA agree that humanitarian needs will remain 
substantial in 2005.  They caution that relief agencies need 
to maintain current levels of emergency assistance, which has 
sustained Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank over the 
last four years, to support economic recovery.  Although 
access restrictions in Gaza and the West Bank have become 
less prohibitive over the last six weeks, OCHA is also 
recommending that relief agencies stockpile food and medical 
aid before June to counter the possibility the IDF will "lock 
down" movement in Gaza to facilitate disengagement.  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
WORLD BANK, OCHA ASSESS NEED FOR EMERGENCY REFUGEE AID 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
2. (SBU) Last November, the United Nations Relief and Works 
Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) issued a USD 185.8 
million appeal to extend its emergency programming in Gaza 
and the West Bank through 2005 -- the eighth appeal UNRWA has 
issued since September 2000.  UNRWA,s core emergency 
programs (food aid, temporary employment, and cash 
assistance) are the largest in the region, supporting close 
to three-fourths of the 1.6 million Palestinian refugees who 
live in Gaza and the West Bank. (NOTE:  Palestinian refugees 
make up 60 percent of total population of the Strip and 29 
percent of the total population of the West Bank.  END NOTE.) 
 Because this emergency appeal was not based on scenarios 
that included Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the northern 
West Bank, diplomats representing the top five donors to 
UNRWA asked David Shearer, the Director of the UN Office for 
the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), OCHA Gaza 
Field Director Sam Sheppard, and World Bank staff member John 
Wetter during a February 21 meeting in Jerusalem to assess 
how emergency programming and/or targeting might need to be 
revised. 
 
WORLD BANK CAUTIONS AGAINST PREMATURELY SCALING BACK AID 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
3. (SBU) Shearer and Wetter argued that humanitarian needs 
will remain significant in both the Gaza Strip and the West 
Bank throughout this year, despite the positive developments 
that have taken place since the February 8 Sharm-el-Sheik 
summit.  Although the IDF has taken steps over the last six 
weeks to ease some restrictions at Gaza's border crossings 
and at its internal Abu Kholi checkpoint -- and has also 
reduced internal checkpoints/roadblocks in the West Bank from 
700 to 650 -- Shearer stressed that a majority of the 
internal and external closures, which the World Bank/PCSB 
cite as the main cause of the steady increases in 
unemployment, food insecurity, and infant mortality in its 
2004 Deep Palestinian Poverty Report, are still in place. 
Wetter added that even if one assumes the IDF will continue 
to lift access restrictions, the World Bank's "extreme best 
case" post-disengagement recovery scenario (i.e., a complete 
return to pre-Intifada levels of access to the Israeli labor 
market, combined with development programs that create 
foreign markets for the Palestinian economy) does not/not 
project unemployment rates dropping quickly enough to warrant 
scaling back emergency aid programs this year.  (NOTE: 
According to the World Bank/PCSB October 2004 Deep 
Palestinian Poverty Report, approximately 75 percent of 
refugees depend on UNRWA's emergency poverty reduction 
programs for survival due to rising unemployment rates that 
reached -- using conservative estimates  -- 39.7 percent in 
Gaza and 23.6 percent in the West Bank in 2004.  END NOTE.) 
 
4. (SBU) Wetter and Shearer saw no need for relief agencies 
to significantly scale up their emergency programs to respond 
to disengagement, but cautioned that failing to maintain 
emergency assistance at current levels would deepen poverty, 
and increase food insecurity, at a time when many 
Palestinians are looking for a "dividend" from the recent 
period of calm.  (NOTE: In its June 2004 Emergency Food 
Security Needs Assessment, the WFP estimated that 586,000 
Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are at risk of 
becoming food insecure, in addition to the 1.3 million 
persons who already need food assistance.  END NOTE.) 
 
OCHA RECOMMENDS PRE-POSITIONING AID BY JUNE 
------------------------------------------- 
 
5. (SBU) Shearer and Sheppard added that OCHA is concerned 
that breaks could develop in the current aid pipeline.  They 
said that OCHA has been encouraging UN relief agencies to 
take precautionary measures in Gaza in case the  number of 
closures spikes during disengagement, when the IDF could 
curtail the movement of humanitarian workers and goods to 
facilitate the exit of Israeli settlers.  Sheppard said that 
WFP and UNICEF participated directly in OCHA-led contingency 
planning, and have been stockpiling two months, worth of 
emergency food and medical supplies in strategic locations in 
the Gaza Strip based on an early OCHA "worst case scenario" 
-- a full 90-day lockdown of the Gaza Strip's border 
crossings, as well as its main internal crossings, that would 
effectively divide it into three or four blocs at Netzarim, 
Abu Kholi and Morag.  Shearer and Sheppard were unable to 
comment on UNRWA's preparedness, noting that UNRWA opted to 
conduct its own contingency planning. 
 
6. (SBU) Shearer acknowledged that UNRWA's operations may be 
less vulnerable to internal closures than the operations of 
other assistance providers, given the large size of its local 
staff in Gaza (about 8,400 persons), and that recent press 
reporting suggests the IDF hopes to complete disengagement in 
the Gaza Strip without a prolonged "lock down."  He 
nonetheless recommended that UNRWA attempt to pre-position 
food and medical supplies scheduled to be delivered in Gaza 
this summer before June, explaining that the majority of 
UNRWA staff live in the north, in Gaza City, and in the south 
at Khan Younis.  If the IDF closes Gaza's main junctures, as 
it did during last October's Operation Days of Penitence, 
UNRWA might not be able to distribute food to refugees in 
central Gaza between the Netzarim and Abu Kholi junctions -- 
an area that houses the four UNRWA Camps of Nuseirat, Bureij, 
Maghazi, and Deir el-Balah, with a combined population of 
142,135.  Wetter added that the October 2004 Deep Palestinian 
Poverty Report suggests that rural refugees living outside 
UNRWA camps in the Gaza Strip could be particularly 
vulnerable if internal closures spike, as they are already 
less likely to receive emergency assistance.  Shearer thought 
it unlikely that aid agencies would face similar access 
problems in the northern West Bank, but noted that OCHA is 
planning to release a new humanitarian situation report on 
the West Bank in April; he explained that OCHA is concerned 
that relief agencies could be inadvertently forced to scale 
back their aid if donors continue to earmark their 
contributions for Gaza. 
------------------------- 
UNRWA'S RESPONSE CAPACITY 
------------------------- 
 
7. (SBU) UNRWA Gaza and West Bank Field staff responsible for 
developing and implementing the agency's emergency 
programming confirmed in separate February 22-March 9 
meetings with refcoord that their contingency planning is in 
line with that of other UN relief agencies.  As in 2004, 
UNRWA's primary poverty alleviation vehicle is its direct 
food aid program.  The agency is attempting to negotiate 
access with the IDF to meet its internal target, established 
in 2001, to warehouse at any one time supplies sufficient to 
conduct two emergency food distribution rounds in Gaza and 
the West Bank.  Currently, it has sufficient stocks to carry 
out the one ongoing distribution round, and needs to bring in 
additional food to carry out distribution rounds scheduled 
for April and July.  (NOTE: To meet 60 percent of the caloric 
needs of refugee families living below USD 2/day (an 
Agency-wide target for poverty alleviation set prior to the 
current Intifada) UNRWA calculates that it will need to 
distribute emergency food parcels to 132,000 families in Gaza 
(69 percent of registered refugees, up from 67 percent last 
year) once every six weeks this year for a total of eight 
rounds.  In the West Bank, it needs to distribute food to 
94,294 families (63 percent of all registered refugees) once 
every three months, for a total of four rounds per year. 
Since the March 2004 attack on Ashdod port, UNRWA has been 
unable to retain this schedule in Gaza.  New security 
measures limited the movement of humanitarian goods; as of 
February, UNRWA had over 700 loaded containers of emergency 
food and medicines waiting to be off loaded in Ashdod and 350 
empty containers waiting to be transported out of Gaza. END 
NOTE.) 
 
UNRWA SECURES TEMPORARY ACCESS AGREEMENT... 
------------------------------------------- 
 
8. (SBU) According to Olaf Mulander, UNRWA,s Chief Field 
Logistics/Procurement Officer, UNRWA will be able to 
pre-position sufficient food in Gaza for the April round 
using a temporary agreement with the IDF to offload 350 
containers of food purchased with 2004-year funds from Ashdod 
through the military-controlled Sufa border crossing over the 
next four weeks.  However, Deputy Gaza Field Director 
Christer Nordahl told refcoord March 21 that he is still 
waiting for a response from the IDF to his request to 
increase the number of containers UNRWA can transport via 
Sufa from 100/week to 140/week to start pre-positioning food 
for its July distribution round.  Nordahl thought the IDF 
would grant this access and assured refcoord that UNRWA has 
sufficient facilities to adequately pre-position these stocks 
should the Gaza Strip be divided into blocs; in addition to 
rented warehouse space that UNRWA has secured in central Gaza 
and at Karni, UNRWA is prepared to use its pre-existing food 
distribution centers for vulnerable refugees such as the 
disabled. 
 
9. (SBU) However, he thought it unlikely that UNRWA could 
supply Gaza using food purchased under last year's appeal. 
UNRWA is diverting the remaining 300 containers currently in 
Ashdod, along with an additional 255 scheduled to arrive this 
month, to the West Bank, using borrowed WFP temporary storage 
tents that will be set up on UNRWA school grounds, to ensure 
UNRWA has sufficient stocks to carry out an emergency food 
round scheduled for April.  (NOTE:  West Bank Field Deputy 
Director Jean Tissot told refcoord February 21 that 
pre-positioning within the West Bank might become necessary 
if the Jerusalem permit system is tightened as a 
disengagement-related security measure.  He noted that one of 
UNRWA's primary warehouses is located at its East Jerusalem 
Field HQ and over 80 percent of his HQ staff reside inside 
the West Bank.  Tissot is analyzing how staff and supplies 
could be relocated to Ramallah to mitigate the impact the 
completion of the barrier will have on UNRWA operations if it 
creates the so-called "Jerusalem envelope." Apart from 
creating new internet connections, he predicted that 
additional operating costs would be minimal.  END NOTE.) 
 
 
...BUT MAY CUT BACK AID DUE TO POOR CASH FLOW 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
10. (SBU) Currently, UNRWA says it has insufficient funds to 
purchase food for additional rounds of distribution. 
Although a single food round for Gaza costs about USD 5.8 
million and USD 6 million for the West Bank, unobligated 
funds raised under the 2004 appeal are limited to USD 3.2 
million in Gaza (of which USD 632,000 is earmarked for cash 
assistance) and USD 1.37 million in the West Bank.  Current 
pledges to the 2005 appeal cannot make up the difference as 
they are primarily earmarked for UNRWA's lower-priority 
emergency housing programs, with only USD 1.3 million 
available for food.  UNRWA's Gaza deputy director fears that 
UNRWA could be forced to scale back its emergency assistance 
programs without an immediate cash injection.  Nordahl 
explained that it requires an average of three months for 
humanitarian aid to reach Ashdod under UN tendering rules. 
He added that other poverty alleviation programs, including 
employment schemes and direct cash assistance, would also be 
affected by the current level of earmarking. 
 
DONOR RESPONSE AS OF MARCH 16 
============================= 
 
DONOR         PLEDGE (USD)    EARMARK 
 
Belgium       2,614,380       1,307,190 for food 
                              1,307,190 for indirect 
                              hire programs in the West Bank 
 
Saudi Arabia  20,000,000      100 percent Rafah housing 
 
Japan         15,000,000         100 percent Rafah housing 
 
Flanders,      196,078     100 percent Rafah housing 
Belgium 
 
LDS Church     72,000 in-kind aid (oat cereal) 
 
Private        11,382 
 
Total Cash      37,821,840 
 
10. (SBU) UNRWA's ongoing negotiations appear unlikely to 
remedy this situation.  Although the UAE is considering a USD 
5.5 million contribution, UNRWA External Affairs reports that 
the UAE has indicated that it wants to earmark its 
contributions for housing.  Amman- and Jerusalem-based EU 
officials also report that Brussels, has taken a decision in 
the last two weeks to provide 38 million Euros to the UN,s 
2005 consolidated appeal in two tranches (25 million in March 
and 13 million in September) in the last two weeks, but only 
six million is earmarked for UNRWA (2.5M for emergency food 
and 3.5M for emergency employment). 
 
11. (SBU) COMMENT: UNRWA hopes the U.S. and other traditional 
emergency appeal donors (e.g., the UK, Sweden) will provide 
an early contribution to its 2005 appeal.  Although UNRWA 
could do more to improve its emergency targeting (refcoord 
and USAID Gaza/WB will continue to work with EU counterparts 
to push UNRWA to sign an MOU with WFP, for example), it has 
created a substantial and necessary buffer in Gaza and the 
West Bank.  An early and significant contribution to help 
UNRWA maintain its direct food aid and emergency employment 
programs through 2005 would ensure that sorely needed 
assistance is not cut off as a result of 
disengagement-related Israeli security measures, at a time 
when Palestinians will be looking for dividends and will be 
voting in legislative elections.  END COMMENT. 
HALE