Date: April 1, 2026
Included the closure of evening shifts in two out of eight health centers
Refugee Affairs Department rejects UNRWA decisions to terminate contracts of health sector employees in Gaza
UNRWA decisions strike at the foundations of healthcare in the camps and represent an abandonment of humanitarian and legal responsibility.
He warned of an existential threat to the health security of hundreds of thousands of refugees, for whom UNRWA clinics have become the only and last refuge for survival.
He called on UNRWA to immediately reverse the decision and engage with unions to protect employees’ rights and ensure service stability.
He called on the international community and donors to urgently intervene to save the Agency from financial and service collapse.
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The Refugee Affairs Department of the Palestine Liberation Organization announced its categorical rejection of the decision by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to terminate the contracts of approximately 87 health personnel working under daily contracts in the Gaza Strip, including doctors and nurses who have served for more than five years, considering that invoking the financial crisis does not justify undermining the healthcare system for refugees.
Dr. Ahmad Abu Holi, member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and head of the Refugee Affairs Department, affirmed that this “irresponsible” decision carries catastrophic consequences that strike at the foundations of the healthcare system within Palestinian refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. He warned that reducing medical staff at this critical and complex time will lead to near-total paralysis in the ability of the remaining eight clinics (out of 22 centers) to respond to the growing needs of the refugee community, which now relies on the Agency’s services by more than 71 percent as its sole source of medical care.
Abu Holi explained that terminating the contracts of medical professionals, who have provided more than 15.9 million medical consultations since the beginning of the war of genocide in the Gaza Strip, will create a highly strained work environment for the remaining staff, who are already burdened with delivering around 16,000 consultations daily, monitoring periodic examinations for more than 240,000 children suffering from malnutrition, in addition to caring for tens of thousands of pregnant women. He stressed that this measure will worsen severe overcrowding in health facilities and undermine the quality of medical care at a critical moment marked by the collapse and paralysis of vital health sectors in Gaza.
He warned that these arbitrary decisions come at a time when the health sector in the Gaza Strip is experiencing near-total paralysis following systematic destruction that has affected more than 70 percent of medical infrastructure, citing World Health Organization reports confirming that the sector is facing an unprecedented health catastrophe amid the ongoing war of genocide and the shutdown of most hospitals, with the remaining ones reduced to basic medical points.
Abu Holi considered that undermining health services amid this comprehensive collapse constitutes a blatant of red lines and a grave violation of refugees’ fundamental right to access life-saving medical care. He emphasized that these measures pose an existential threat to the health security of hundreds of thousands of refugees, for whom UNRWA clinics have become the only and final refuge for survival.
He stressed that depriving refugees of their humanitarian right to treatment in the absence of medical alternatives represents a clear abdication of the Agency’s international mandate and a direct disregard for the lives of the most vulnerable populations facing imminent danger.
Abu Holi also rejected UNRWA’s decision to close evening shifts in two out of the only eight remaining health centers in the Gaza Strip, considering that this measure, coupled with the dismissal of 87 members of the medical staff, represents an explicit abandonment of humanitarian responsibility and the ethical and legal obligations guaranteed and protected under international humanitarian law, especially during times of conflict and disasters.
He affirmed that the Palestine Liberation Organization will not allow administrative decisions that contribute to emptying UNRWA of its workforce and undermining its core programs, calling on the Agency’s administration to immediately reverse these steps and engage with unions to develop a joint vision that ensures the continuity of services and the Agency’s survival amid the current financial crisis.
Abu Holi called on the international community and donor countries to urgently intervene to save the Agency from financial collapse and to provide sustainable funding that ensures the stability of essential services and the protection of employees’ rights. He also called on the United Nations General Assembly to assume its legal and moral responsibilities toward Palestinian refugees and to ensure that budget deficits are not used as a tool to reduce humanitarian services amid the successive crises affecting the region.
