UNRWA’s Termination of Gazan Staff Abroad is Creating Another Humanitarian Crisis **By Abedalrahman Mohammed** In the midst of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, another crisis is unfolding quietly but no less devastating: the termination of Palestinian employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) who are currently outside the Gaza Strip after being placed on exceptional leave. Many of these men and women did not choose to leave Gaza — they fled for their lives, sometimes accompanying sick relatives, sometimes escaping bombardment that left them no alternative. Yet now, they are being told their contracts have been ended immediately, a decision that has sent shockwaves through families already fractured by war and displacement. UNRWA placed hundreds of its Gaza-based staff on exceptional leave starting in March 2025, a temporary measure meant to protect their jobs while they were unable to work due to the ongoing war and the closure of border crossings. However, in early January 2026, the agency abruptly announced that those contracts would be terminated, effective immediately, citing a severe financial crisis and an inability to sustain salaries and programme commitments. [Subscribe now][1] The decision affects roughly 600 employees, primarily in the education sector, many of whom are currently in Egypt because they could not safely return to Gaza. Staff learned of the termination through formal letters outlining that their services had ended, and that their final settlements — including end of service compensation and notice pay — would be processed in due course. Many of the affected employees had hoped that the “exceptional leave” would be temporary — that once crossings opened, even briefly, they could return to their classrooms, clinics, and communities. Instead, they now confront a different form of displacement: economic erasure. ## *Arbitrary and unjust* The impact of this decision extends far beyond individual employees. These are families — parents, spouses, children — whose livelihoods depended on stable work with UNRWA. The agency is often one of the few employment avenues in Palestinian refugee communities. Losing that work means losing not only a paycheck but also access to medical insurance, educational support for children, and the psychological security that comes with professional identity and routine. Local human rights groups have condemned the termination as arbitrary, unjust, and a violation of basic rights, noting that the employees were prevented by circumstances beyond their control from returning to Gaza and resuming their duties. They argue that blaming staff for having fled a war zone amounts to punishing them twice: first by the violence that drove them out, and then by stripping them of their means to survive outside it. The reaction among Palestinian society has been swift and critical. Comments from staff and unions highlight the personal trauma and financial i caused by the decision. “The decision is arbitrary and discriminatory. We did not leave Gaza by choice — we fled for our lives or to accompany sick relatives. Now we are punished for surviving,” said Abu Adi Al-Talla’, spokesperson for UNRWA contract employees. Palestinian factions and unions condemned the move as unjust and inhumane, warning that dismissals undermine basic employment rights at a critical time when families are struggling to recover from war. “Cuts and contract terminations amount to a ‘stab in the back’ of employees who lost colleagues under bombardment and have served as a safety valve for the agency,” said Ahmed Abu Houli, of the PLO’s Refugee Affairs Department. Hamas, meanwhile, described the decision as an infringement on fundamental employment rights for people who were unable to return due to border closures and war conditions. ## *Human tragedy* This is not merely an administrative or financial issue; it is a human tragedy unfolding in parallel with the broader crisis in Gaza. UNRWA employees are not faceless bureaucrats — they are teachers who once stood at chalkboards, parents who tucked their children into bed before the war began, and community members who provided stability in an unstable world. Now, many face unemployment in foreign lands, with depleted savings and uncertain futures. The agency has indicated it will provide statutory compensation, but for many families, such payments — arriving weeks or months later — do not address the immediate needs of daily life. They cannot replace the security of a job, community, and home. [Subscribe now][2] In a moment when international attention focuses on the physical destruction within Gaza’s borders, the termination of services for these employees exposes a different dimension of the crisis: the systematic unravelling of Palestinian social and economic structures that have been sustained, imperfectly but indispensably, by institutions like UNRWA. Stripping people of their employment because they had to survive war and protect their families raises profound ethical questions about who bears the burden of conflict and who is protected by international humanitarian systems. The decision to terminate the contracts of UNRWA staff who fled Gaza under life-threatening conditions is more than a labour dispute — it is a moral crisis. It turns survival into a professional liability, punishes those who were driven by fear for their lives and those of their loved ones, and deepens the economic fracture for families already pushed to the brink. As Gaza’s war continues, so too must the international community grapple with the consequences — seen and unseen — of policies that transform victims of conflict into victims of institutional abandonment. *** *Abedalrahman Mohammed is a Palestinian journalist and translator with over 20 years of experience in the field. He is a professional author producing analytical documentary-style journalism.* [1]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? [2]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/p/unrwas-termination-of-gazan-staff

In Gaza, the occupation enforces slowness. Speed is our escape. Photograph: Khames al-Refi Every Friday afternoon, when the week loosens its grip on Gaza, the sand begins to vibrate. In west Gaza, where the land meets the sea, engines roar back to life along the scarred stretch once known as the “Netzarim corridor” and on the sand dunes of al-Zahra. Motorbikes and off-road vehicles surge forward, cutting through sand dunes that look out toward a sea that is somehow still breathing, still blue. Tires dig in. Sand sprays into the air like fireworks. For a few fleeting hours, Gaza’s youth move fast. Faster than grief, faster than memory, faster than the suffocating slowness imposed on their lives. This weekly ritual is not new. Since around 2015, young Palestinians have gathered in the Netzarim area and nearby al-Zahra city to ride, perform stunts, and test their limits. [Subscribe now][1] But after two years of genocide, displacement, fuel starvation, and an Israeli military presence that rendered the area a killing zone, the return to these dunes is more than a hobby. It is an act of reclamation. “We love life,” Mahmoud Saqer, 30, one of the riders in the group, tells me. “And this is how we remember that.” Mahmoud remembers the early days clearly. Back then, al-Zahra was completely alive. Thousands of people would come on Fridays, including riders, families, children, vendors, and spectators. The dunes were wide, the streets intact, and petrol was available. Photograph: Khames al-Refi “Everyone had his own style,” Mahmoud adds. “Some would lift the bike on one wheel. Others would race up steep sand hills. Some would fall, break a bone—we used to joke and call it a ‘quick death’. But no one would give up. We keep trying until we make it.” The gatherings were communal events. Crowds formed naturally, drawn by the sound of engines and the sight of young men defying gravity. Watching was part of the experience. For riders and spectators alike, it was a release. ## *Empty horizon* That release became impossible after the genocide started. During the genocide, Netzarim was transformed into a corridor of death. Israeli occupation forces occupied the area; anyone attempting to cross or even approach it risked being shot on sight. Petrol vanished. What little entered Gaza became impossibly expensive—up to $40 per litre. Motorbikes and off-road vehicles were hidden away. “We stored all the motorbikes,” Issam Abu Asr, 26, who was displaced after his home in al-Shejaiya neighbourhood was destroyed, tells me. “Not because we forgot our passion, but because a single missile could take it all away.” [Subscribe now][2] For younger riders like 15-year-old Waleed Alareer, the loss was deeply personal. Before the genocide, he rode along the brightly-lit asphalt roads by the sea, learning balance and control. During the genocide, he could only walk to the closest accessible point, stare at the empty horizon, and imagine the sound of his engine. “When the IOF soldiers were centring in the Netzarim area, I was reaching to the last point I could reach and standing there and remembering,” he tells me. “About how I used to start my bike and ride from north to south.” ## *Burning rubber* When the Israeli forces withdrew and riders cautiously returned, the feeling was overwhelming - but incomplete. “I hadn’t ridden in two years,” Mahmoud says. “The first time back, it felt strange. I couldn’t even lift the bike on one wheel.” Mohammad Al-Zaza, 22, describes the return as an attempt to stitch his scattered memories back together. “We try to remember how it was before,” he says, “but the memories are missing pieces. The streets are destroyed. There’s no lighting. We have to leave at sunset. Before, we stayed until midnight.” The losses are visible everywhere. Friends who once rode together are gone - killed, displaced, or unable to repair bikes destroyed in the bombing. Al-Zahra City has been wiped off the map. What remains of Netzarim are fragments, now narrow and crowded. Still, they come. Photograph: Khames al-Refi But on Friday afternoons, people gather around the riders again, forming loose circles. Some sit on broken concrete slabs. Others stand barefoot in the sand. Children cheer when a bike catches air. The sea breeze carries the smell of salt and petrol, mixing with the sharp scent of burning rubber. When engines rev, sand sprays outward in wide arcs. The first acceleration sends dunes trembling. Riders perform wheelies, drift sideways across loose terrain, and charge uphill until gravity nearly wins—until, finally, it doesn’t. “It’s not just for us,” Mahmoud explains. “The people watching—they’re releasing energy too. They watch the bikes, the sea, the flying sand. For a moment, everyone breathes.” Speed here is contagious. Even standing still, you feel it. ## *Enforced slowness* In Gaza, slowness is enforced. Waiting—for electricity, for fuel, for permission, for reconstruction, for relief. Occupation stretches time until it becomes a punishment. That is why speed matters. “When I ride fast, adrenaline and happiness hormones are released,” Mohammad says. “It’s indescribable.” Issam puts it differently: “Speed is instinct. It’s inside us. Occupation tried to kill that—especially when fuel was cut—but it didn’t work.” Even now, petrol remains scarce and exorbitantly priced. Spare parts and engine oil are nearly impossible to obtain. Each ride is calculated, rationed, precious. And yet, the bikes keep moving. Riders never go alone. They arrive together and leave together, partly for camaraderie, partly for safety. But the emptiness of Netzarim carries risks—criminal gangs, collaborators, and the lingering threat of violence. “We ride as a group,” Issam says. “It’s about spirit and protection.” Photograph: Khames al-Refi The riders coordinate beforehand, message each other, share routes, and document their rides on Instagram and TikTok. Visibility itself becomes a statement: we are here, and we are alive. Walid laughs when he describes his first ride back. “I was flying with happiness. I couldn’t stop laughing.” Despite exhaustion, loss, and uncertainty, the dunes offer something rare in Gaza: unfiltered joy. The riders are not naive about what they face. They speak openly about petrol prices, destroyed infrastructure, and the impossibility of returning to what once was. But none of them speak of surrender. Photograph: Khames al-Refi Their message to the world is clear. Pressure the occupation to allow fuel, spare parts, and reconstruction. Support Gaza’s youth, whose talents survive without resources. Above all, understand that joy itself is a form of resistance. As the sun dips toward the Mediterranean and engines fall silent, the sand settles. The riders pack up, promising to return next Friday. On the dunes of Netzarim - amid ruins, sea air, and flying sand - they choose speed over erasure, and life over everything else. *Ali Skaik is an English Literature student and writer from Gaza City. Every word he writes is a pulse from his life in Gaza. He is a member of WANN and has published work in The Nation, The New Arab, The Intercept and The Electronic Intifada.* [1]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? [2]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/p/in-gaza-the-occupation-enforces-slowness

The Unbearable Weight of Escaping Gaza’s Destruction Dreaming tastes strange when it comes with guilt. I had long hoped for a scholarship to study abroad, like any other international student - and now it’s real. I have won a place in Italy to complete my bachelor’s degree, just as I always dreamed. But I never imagined my scholarship would arrive in the middle of a genocide. I never thought it would be my ticket to survival. The process began in the early months of the war when I realised Gaza was no longer the place I had once known. I told my family I wanted to complete my bachelor’s degree abroad, no matter how long it took. Amid starvation, bombs, death, and unimaginable conditions, I held on to my dream. I spent hours on my phone - no matter how many times the electricity or internet failed - searching for a scholarship that could realise my dream. I applied dozens of times to different countries and programmes and, somehow, I had the strength to keep going, even while sheltering from the war. [Subscribe now][1] Every email notification was a promise of escape, but it always ended the same way - with a rejection. I remained trapped in Gaza, with no clear way out. But I kept pursuing my dream, even when the world around me was telling me there was no hope. Then, good news finally arrived: I was granted a scholarship in Italy. I remember vividly where I was when hope finally touched me: sitting in the tent at our displacement site - it was October 2025. I prayed that this time it would be real, that my heart would not break again. While waiting for my evacuation date, I spent days and nights without sleep. I was torn between chasing my dream and the guilt of leaving my family. It felt unbearably cruel to hold a single ticket to survival while part of a family of eight who had no similar way out. For a month, I waited. For a month, I asked myself the same questions every day: why must I leave Gaza to have a future? Why does life for Palestinians always feel incomplete? Why is our joy always complicated? ## *Evacuation* Finally, the night of the evacuation arrived. I received a call from the Italian embassy: be ready on 17 November at 4am in Deir al-Balah. I was instructed to only bring my phone and charger, nothing else was allowed. The dream was finally becoming real, but for a Palestinian, happiness is never pure. All my hopes for the future fell away as I said goodbye to my family: my father, mother, four brothers, and one sister. Tears still fall as I write this. Can you imagine how much I miss them? For me, we are the best family. We endured the war and its unbearable conditions together, hand in hand. We shared the pain with patience and hope. In reality, survival meant nothing without them. At 6am, I began leaving Gaza. Once on the evacuation bus, I realised that nothing would ever be the same. Not me, not my future. I began to think of those who had destroyed our dreams, forcing us to leave and rebuild our lives elsewhere. Fear, stress, and terror consumed me. I was about to face the people who had tried to destroy us over the past two years. All I could do was sit in silence - powerless - and follow the rules they imposed. “Sara Awad, Italy.” That was the last thing I heard from the Israeli soldier at the checkpoint. My heart felt so heavy, and survivor’s guilt began to settle deep in my mind and soul. More than ten hours passed on the bus heading to Amman, Jordan. As we crossed our occupied land, I saw it for the first time in my 21 years. I understood I might never see it again. There were 24 people being evacuated to Italy, including students and family reunions. Elderly people and children were exhausted from the long evacuation process. During these hours on the bus, I started to think about everything I had endured during the war. I cried like a child longing for her mother. Millions of emotions, suppressed and scattered during the chaos, now poured out as I left Gaza behind. ## *Heavy freedom* After days of exhaustion and fear, the journey was finally over. I arrived in Italy. I had expected to feel happy and relieved, but the truth was the opposite. Life outside Gaza seemed completely normal, too normal, while my people continued to suffer, even during the so-called ceasefire. Italy was safe, clean, beautiful, and welcoming. And yet, it just kept reminding me how unfair life could be. The first days in Italy felt unreal after witnessing two years of war. Life here was slow and quiet, the air clean, the streets calm. There was no chaos, no faces filled with fear, no constant uncertainty. People moved freely, unburdened. I realised how heavy freedom could feel when you’ve lived without it for so long. I thought building a new life away from home would feel like a fresh start, but I didn’t realise the weight of carrying two lives at once - one of them scarred by war. How heavy it is to be a 21-year-old girl away from her loved ones, trying to build a better future for herself. [Subscribe now][2] But, as always, Gazans know nothing about giving up. I still have hope for the future. It is January 2026 - a new year and a new chapter of my life. All my wishes go to Gaza and my family. May they remain happy and safe for all the years to come. My heart is also full of gratitude and appreciation for Italy and its people. I am here living a good life because of the support of many lovely Italians. Effort and hard work sometimes pays off. I am deeply grateful for this opportunity, and I hope that all students in Gaza who dream of a scholarship will be able to achieve it. I also hope that they can pursue their dreams without carrying the weight of survivor’s guilt that I bear in my heart. Thank you, Italy. But I count the days until I can return to my homeland, to rebuild it with my education and my hope. My beloved Gaza, I carry you in my heart. *** Sara Awad is a Palestinian writer who evacuated to Italy to complete her bachelor’s degree in languages. Her work has appeared in The Intercept, Al Jazeera English, TRT World, Drop Site News, The Independent, Truthout, PRISM, and other international platforms. Passionate about capturing human experiences and shedding light on untold stories, she reports on social issues, resilience, identity, and hope amid the ongoing realities of war and occupation. [1]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? [2]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/p/the-unbearable-weight-of-escaping

Inside Gaza’s Medical Emergency [ [North Gaza's last functioning hospital forced to shut by Israeli ...] ][1] By Rawan Wajdi Jouda Thursday morning in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza was not an ordinary day. It wasn’t the roar of fighter jets that gripped our hearts this time, but a more terrifying sound: the silence creeping from behind the walls of Al-Awda Hospital in** **our camp. As a resident of this besieged and exhausted camp, I didn’t need to read the official press release saturating the news to understand the scale of the catastrophe. The power to the hospital had been switched off. I went along the road to the hospital, where I normally see people rushing along to find a sanctuary for survival. Along the roadsides, sewage water overflowed, a grim reminder of what is causing an invisible enemy which is infiltrating the bodies of my neighbours: Hepatitis A. Upon arrival at the hospital, the massive roar of the generators we had grown accustomed to was gone, replaced by an eerie stillness. I entered through a gate that usually bustled with life, stepping into a reception hall swallowed by gloom, lit only by the faint beams of mobile phone flashlights held by nurses. [Subscribe now][2] In the corners, I saw children whose faces had turned a sallow yellow, as if a premature autumn had struck their fragile bodies. This is Hepatitis A, the “yellow plague” gnawing at the livers of the displaced in nearby tents. They came here seeking a miracle, only to find that the miracle now depends on “litres of fuel” that had been withdrawn. I saw a mother clutching her jaundiced child. His eyes were dim as he stood bewildered before the reception desk, only for a nurse to tell her with profound sorrow: “There is no fuel for the laboratory to run the tests.” In that moment, I realised the true meaning of “slow death”: to have the cure existing just behind a door, but the key, a litre of fuel, is held captive behind borders by the Israelis. ## *No power* I approached one of the mothers who was holding her whimpering child. Her voice trembled as she asked me: “We fled death in the tents only to die here because the power is out?” I had no answer. I simply recorded her words in my journal, which was by now full of tears rather than ink. Inside, the air conditioning had been cut. The elevators had stopped working entirely. I saw patients being evacuated from the general and specialised surgery departments in a scene resembling a forced displacement. They had to be moved from their hospital beds because the operating rooms had shut down. As a result of the lack of fuel, more than 50,000 life-saving surgical procedures have been postponed, turning time itself into another weapon against the wounded. In another dark corner of the maternity ward, a woman was in labour and groaning. The hospital is now forced to prioritise patients among the dying: it shuts down entire vital departments just to get hold of a small generator to light a single bulb over a midwife’s head. Other women in labour are taken to different hospitals, while paediatric admissions are sent to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. I heard the medical staff whispering about the “black market”. Can the world imagine a hospital that saves lives being forced to hunt desperately for fuel from traders at $12 per litre? This means Al Awda Hospital needs $12,000 every single day just to operate. This is a state-level budget needed by a besieged hospital while international organisations close their operations and offer nothing but apologies. It is an impossible amount for a facility that survived 26 months of relentless bombardment, only to be stabbed in the back by a “fuel siege”. Many medical staff, those who haven’t left the field for 600 days since the start of the genocide, have been forced into “involuntary leave”. ## *Engineered annihilation* What is happening within the halls of Al-Awda Hospital is not a passing fuel crisis: it is a new chilling chapter in Israel’s process of “engineered annihilation,” practised against the Palestinian population in Gaza. Then, while the world was pushing the narrative about “calm” and 2026 heralding a so-called “recovery”, Israel chose to inaugurate the new year with its most lethal move since the start of the aggression: the announcement of a plan to end the international humanitarian presence in Gaza. This scheme, which aims to expel more than 37 international organisations, led by Doctors Without Borders, goes beyond a mere administrative decision: it is a death sentence for our remaining, stricken medical facilities. We are talking about organisations whose tireless efforts and essential supplies have literally kept us alive throughout more than two years of relentless slaughter and destruction. By expelling them now, the primary goal is to silence international witnesses and strip Al-Awda Hospital and other steadfast institutions of their last chance at survival. [Subscribe now][3] We are facing a process of* institutional uprooting* aimed at turning Gaza into an uninhabitable space. Israel, which has already banned UNRWA and attacked many of its facilities, is expelling international organisations in order to complete a war of starvation and annihilation. We are witnessing a systematic medical strangulation where hospitals are left coping with an explosion of epidemics, with bleeding supplies suffering a 60% deficit. Medical stocks now cover only 10% of the minimum requirements for life in Gaza. All this amidst a shameful international silence. I left Al Awda Hospital wondering: if the artery of Nuseirat has stopped, how much time do we have before the heart of Gaza stops entirely? How cruel is the moment when a doctor is forced to choose which of the dying deserves the least pain, or which life-saving surgeries must be delayed? In Gaza, we have had to learn resilience, but today we discover that resilience can be killed by an empty fuel tank. *** Rawan Wajdi Jouda is a writer and a translation graduate from the Islamic University of Gaza. She is a member of WANN, with contributions featured in WRMEA and Al Jazeera Blogs. She seeks to bear witness to the daily suffering of Gazans and document their lived realities through storytelling. [1]: [2]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? [3]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/p/inside-gazas-medical-emergency

Murjana Book Launch: Love and Passion in Medieval Baghdad It is spring of the year 830. Baghdad, the capital of a vast Islamic empire, is one of the world’s most glorious cities. Its ruler is an intellectual, a forward-thinking caliph who champions reason and the pursuit of knowledge against the forces of ignorance and superstition. The Caliph’s court has become a dazzling academy of poets, musicians, philosophers, and theologians—a picture of a vibrant, self confident, pleasure-loving society. Order [Murjana][1]. [Subscribe now][2] Yet, it bears the fateful seeds of future strife. The Sunni-Shia divide, religious fanaticism, and the stirrings of Islamist extremism all started then. These themes emerge as the story of a passionate love that ends in murder unfolds. Dr Ghada Karmi is a celebrated Palestinian author, physician and academic. She was born in Jerusalem before being ethnically cleansed as a child during the Nakba in 1948. Dr Karmi later trained as a doctor of medicine at Bristol University. She established the first British-Palestinian medical charity in 1972 and was an Associate Fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs. Her previous books include One State The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel and the best-selling In Search of Fatima. Ilan Pappé is a professor at the University of Exeter. He was formerly a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa. He is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, The Modern Middle East, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, and Ten Myths about Israel. [1]: https://interlinkbooks.com/product/murjana/ [2]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/p/murjana-book-launch-love-and-passion