US embassy cable - 05AMMAN4635

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 AMMAN 004635 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT. PLEASE PASS USAID 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/06/2015 
TAGS: PREF, PREL, PGOV, EAID, KPAL, KWBG, IS, JO 
SUBJECT: GAZA DISENGAGEMENT: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE REFUGEE 
POPULATION 
 
REF: AMMAN 4593 
 
Classified By: Acting DCM Christopher Henzel for Reasons 1.4 (B) and (D 
). 
 
1. (C) SUMMARY: PRM PDAS Rich Greene reviewed the 
implications Israel's planned Gaza disengagement will have 
for UN programs that currently sustain over 950,000 
Palestinian refugees -) two-thirds of the population -- in 
May 15-19 meetings with officials from the Israeli MFA, the 
Palestinian Authority (PA) Planning Ministry, the UN Relief 
and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East 
(UNRWA), the UN Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian 
Affairs (OCHA), and the World Bank.  Greene secured an 
Israeli MFA commitment to maintain UNRWA's access to Gaza 
border crossings during disengagement.  Separately, he 
pressed UNRWA to immediately pre-position emergency food 
stocks and other humanitarian supplies in central Gaza, and 
confirmed a recent USG decision to contribute USD 20 million 
to UNRWA,s 2005 emergency appeal.  On post-disengagement 
planning, Greene urged UNRWA to coordinate its development 
planning with the PA and Special Envoy Wolfensohn's team.  To 
kick-start joint planning, the World Bank's West Bank and 
Gaza Director agreed that World Bank staff could help 
harmonize UNRWA-PA social safety net and micro-credit 
programming.  END SUMMARY. 
 
MAINTAINING UNRWA EMERGENCY AID DURING DISENGAGEMENT 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
2. (SBU) In a May 15 meeting with Israel,s senior official 
in charge of UN issues, MFA Deputy Director General for UN 
and International Organizations Affairs Rony Ya,ar, visiting 
PRM PDAS Rich Greene stressed the importance of preserving 
UNRWA,s border access to Gaza during and after disengagement 
to maintain emergency food and other relief programs that 
currently sustain over half of the population of the Gaza 
Strip.  Ya,ar assured Greene that he would urge the FM to 
press the IDF to keep the commercial Karni terminal open for 
humanitarian relief during disengagement, noting that the 
commitment to improve humanitarian access that PM Sharon gave 
the UN SYG in their last meeting in Jerusalem provided the 
MFA "a clear opening" to raise UNRWA access.  Having 
witnessed a temporary shutdown/evacuation of the Karni 
terminal earlier that day, PDAS Greene asked how the GOI 
would maintain aid if it were forced to close Karni in the 
event of an attack.  Ya,ar responded that the IDF would open 
Gaza's southern, military-controlled Sufa crossing to UNRWA 
if necessary.  (COMMENT: While Ya'ar believes that 
disengagement raises fundamental questions about UNRWA's 
mandate, he welcomed the improvement in GOI-UNRWA relations 
that has occurred since former UNRWA Commissioner General 
Peter Hansen left the agency in March.  END COMMENT.) 
 
3. (SBU)  Separately, on the margins of UNRWA's May 18-19 
meeting with major donors and refugee hosting nations 
(septel), Greene urged UNRWA Acting Commissioner General 
Karen Abu Zayd to make emergency food distributions in Gaza a 
top agency priority.   Despite months of prodding by the USG 
and other donors, UNRWA's Gaza Field Director confirmed at 
that meeting that UNRWA has not yet tendered the agency's 
September emergency food round for Gaza, claiming that the 
agency lacked the USD 10 million in required funds.  Greene 
responded by confirming the USG's recent decision to 
contribute USD 20 million to UNRWA's 2005 emergency appeal. 
(NOTE:  The USDEL expedited the transfer of these funds from 
Washington to UNRWA HQ during the meeting.   Saudi Arabia and 
Japan recently contributed USD 20 million and 15 million 
respectively to UNRWA's emergency appeal but earmarked those 
contributions for housing reconstruction in Gaza.  END NOTE.) 
 
 
4. (SBU)  Inadequate internal pre-positioning of food stocks 
in Gaza remains a concern.  While UNRWA invited UNSECOORD to 
brief its donors at its May consultative meetings on the UN's 
operating assumption that the IDF will "lock down" movement 
at Gaza's two major junctions to facilitate the departure of 
settlers, UNRWA's Gaza Field Director revealed to the USG 
delegation May 19 that UNRWA had not yet taken steps to 
ensure it maintains its emergency food distributions in 
central Gaza (the area most vulnerable to closure) this 
summer, citing the agency's lack of UNRWA warehouse 
facilities.  Greene pressed UNRWA to take immediate steps to 
move the portion of its July food distribution round destined 
for central Gaza, which is currently being stored in UNRWA 
warehouses in Gaza City and Rafah, closer to its four central 
refugee camps, suggesting that the agency overcome its 
warehouse deficit by setting up temporary storage facilities 
at schools located in those camps. 
 
5. (SBU)  UNRWA's West Bank Field Director also used the 
agency's semi-annual stakeholder meeting to appeal to donors 
to anticipate the impact continued construction of the 
security barrier will have on refugees in the West Bank and 
East Jerusalem, noting that UNRWA anticipates it will be 
forced to relocate staff and warehouses in East Jerusalem to 
Ramallah later this year.  Greene informed OCHA OpT Director 
David Shearer, following May 15-16 site visits to refugee 
camps and other communities near Ramallah and East Jerusalem 
that are affected by the barrier, that PRM would continue to 
fund OCHA's efforts to assess the humanitarian impact of the 
closure regime. 
 
HARMONIZING UNRWA-PA POST-DISENGAGEMENT PLANNING 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
6. (C) PDAS Greene also used separate May 16-19 meetings with 
PA Deputy Minister of Planning Samih al-Abid, World Bank West 
Bank and Gaza Director Nigel Roberts, and UNRWA's senior 
officials (septel), to underscore USG expectations for 
post-disengagement planning targeting Palestinian refugees. 
Greene stressed that the USG wants the PA, as it becomes more 
capable and empowered, to assume primary responsibility for 
post-disengagement development planning for all Gaza 
residents (including the two-thirds who are refugees), rather 
than cede partial responsibility to UNRWA.  Al-Abid responded 
that the PA, in the short term, is not capable of providing 
direct services to refugees, noting that it is does not have 
the finances nor the capacity.  While conceding that the PA 
should be "more creative" in addressing the needs of refugees 
given that "refugee camps in Gaza are creating socio-economic 
problems that require immediate attention," al-Abid stressed 
that that Israel and the international community would have 
to assume their responsibilities to promote access.  He also 
stressed the two major constraints to the PA making more 
direct interventions to support refugees:  the political 
sensitivity among the Palestinian community to the PA 
undertaking any initiatives for refugees as long as their 
future status is linked to the creation of a Palestinian 
state, and the fact that donors have responded poorly to 
refugee-related appeals, noting traditional donor 
under-funding of UNRWA's budget. 
 
7. (C) The Deputy Planning Minister agreed that coordinating 
UNRWA-PA post-disengagement planning and interventions, 
particularly any large-scale infrastructure projects that 
UNRWA may initiate, would be critical.  Al-Abid also 
acknowledged that the PA should be working more closely with 
UNRWA on its efforts to launch programs designed to create a 
tangible improvement in services post-disengagement, 
particularly in the area of expanding social safety nets. 
However, he was uncertain mechanisms would emerge in the near 
term: lamenting the fact that internal disagreement within 
the PA had stalled any effort to create a "master plan for 
infrastructure," al-Abid noted that any decision to 
institutionalize the meetings the Planning Ministry had 
spearheaded in May to start harmonizing UNRWA's Medium Term 
Plan with the PA's Medium Term Development Plan now resided 
with PA Minister for Civilian Affairs Muhammad Dahlan's 
disengagement coordination team. 
 
UNRWA'S ROLE IN WOLFENSOHN'S RAPID ACTION PROGRAM? 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
8. (C) World Bank representative Nigel Roberts told Greene 
May 16 that the World Bank and other donors working on 
providing technical support for GOI-PA disengagement 
coordination had probably not adequately considered the 
importance of promoting PA-UNRWA cooperation.  Although 
Quartet Special Envoy for Disengagement James Wolfensohn and 
Acting UNRWA ComGen Karen Abu Zayd and had made an earlier 
commitment to discuss humanitarian access, UNRWA,s 
microcredit program, and the impact of the PA's social safety 
net initiative (reftel), Roberts said that the PA and UNRWA, 
in his view, had not yet discussed coordinating their 
activities, especially in terms of a common methodology for 
targeting Palestinian hardship cases.  UNRWA, he commented, 
seemed concerned that the PA's greater focus on social safety 
net programming, which could expand the number of PA 
beneficiaries from 43,000 to 73,000-93,000 by August, could 
negatively impact donor contributions to UNRWA and positively 
increase contributions if the PA were to start targeting the 
full West Bank/Gaza population.  (NOTE:  UNRWA Gaza Field 
Director Lionel Brisson has submitted a paper to the World 
Bank, noting that UNRWA lacks the resources to expand its 
welfare program for refugees in Gaza this summer.  END NOTE). 
 Greene welcomed World Bank efforts to harmonize UNRWA-PA 
plans to expand social safety net programming in Gaza, 
suggesting UNRWA's new poverty advisor as a counterpart. 
9. (C)  Asked whether the PA should take over infrastructure 
projects that UNRWA carries out, such as constructing gas, 
water, and sewage lines for refugee camps and gatherings, 
Roberts said it might make sense, but added that he was not 
certain whether the PA could do it better or cheaper. 
Roberts agreed that the Quartet Disengagement Envoy 
Wolfensohn should include UNRWA in the programs under 
consideration for his Rapid Action Plan to show on-the-ground 
progress to Palestinians during disengagement.  Roberts noted 
that UNRWA might be well positioned to expand small business 
lending in Gaza. 
 
10. (U)  This message was cleared by PRM PDAS Greene. 
 
HALE