A Palestinian man protests against the reduction of the food basket provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).  (Photo: AFP)

Gaza City, January 26 (RHC)-- Palestinian refugees demonstrated in the Gaza Strip against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), slamming its cuts to essential services amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The UN agency provides education, health, food aid and sanitation services to Palestinian refugees displaced and dispossessed upon the creation of the Israeli regime in 1948.  The vast majority of Gazans are refugees who were kicked out of their towns and villages that year.

UNRWA’s field of operation also includes the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem al-Quds as well as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.  The agency is already suffering from a huge budget deficit that has forced it to cut back services to Palestinian refugees in recent years.  Things changed for the worse after the United States suspended its funding to UNRWA in 2018.