The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Administration for Palestine Arab refugees asked the General Assembly today for a record budget of $45,850,300 for 1968 to meet “the ever widening gap between resources and needs” and the dislocations caused by last June’s Arab-Israel war.
Laurence Michelmore, head of the U.N. agency, noted in his 100-page annual report submitted to the General Assembly today, that, as of May 31, 1967, a total of 1,344,576 refugees were registered with UNRWA and that their number had increased since the June hostilities. He said that $5,700,000 out of the agency’s proposed 1968 budget would be needed to meet the costs of programs arising from the Six-Day War.
“After the fighting UNRWA had to overcome formidable obstacles including the limitation of movement by its staff, losses of property and equipment and damage to the agency’s premises and other installations.” Mr. Michelmore’s report stated. Despite this, as soon as the fighting ended, he said, “steps were taken in cooperation with Israeli authorities to restore the distribution of food and other relief services.”
The report noted that while Israel facilitates the work of UNRWA by exempting it from customs duties, taxes and other changes against the import of supplies, food and equipment, the Arab countries do not do likewise. The report made extensive claims against Jordan, Egypt and Syria which so far have levied taxes and customs duties on UNRWA in the amount of $1.5 million, UNRWA has also filed a claim against Israel for $687,713 for damages incurred during the war. Israel has filed a counterclaim of $55.000 for use of telephone and railroad facilities.
REPORT COMPLAINS ONLY SMALL PART OF WEST BANK REFUGEES ALLOWED TO RETURN
Mr. Michelmore summarized the operations of UNRWA on an emergency basis after last June’s fighting. The agency, his report said, undertook the operation of six out of nine new tent camps on the east bank of the Jordan which, by mid-August, housed 73,200 persons displaced from the west bank. “It was hoped that this would be a temporary arrangement and that the bulk of the displaced persons would return to the west bank in accordance with the Security Council recommendation of June 14, 1967,” the report noted, but the hope was not realized “and only a small fraction of the total number of persons who applied for return under the rules established by the Israel Government have so far been permitted to do so.”
The UNRWA report noted that in Syria more than 115,000 people left the area occupied by Israel including some 16,000 Palestinian refugees, UNRWA also extended aid to between 3,000 and 4,000 young male Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip who are now in occupied Egyptian territory.
The report observed that despite the General Assembly resolutions adopted in 1948 and re-affirmed year after year, the refugees still had neither an opportunity to return to their homes nor compensation for the property they left behind. This was attributed to the linking of the two issues of compensation with repatriation in the resolutions with the result that nothing was done owing to the continued deadlock over repatriation.
The UNRWA report stated that relations between the agency and Israel have been satisfactory. It noted that for the first time, Israel was a host country for refugees.
ISRAELI SPOKESMAN CRITICIZES REPORT; BLASTS AID TO PLA SOLDIERS
An Israeli spokesman charged tonight that the UNRWA report “practically ignored the element of resettlement which forms the central part of United Nations policy as one of the means for a solution of the refugee problem,” He declared that comments in the report that only a small fraction of the number of refugees had been allowed to return to the West Bank “does not conform with the facts of the situation.”
The spokesman drew attention to the fact that 3,000-4,000 young men who had been members of the Palestine Liberation Army of Ahmed Shukairy and who had been permitted to return with other prisoners of war to Egypt, were now receiving UNRWA aid. He said that “the fact that UNRWA has cared for these soldiers and has extended them relief has aroused strong criticism and protest in the United Nations in recent weeks and dissatisfaction in world opinion.”
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