Rafah - Gaza: Europe and the Arabs
With the support of UNRWA, an entertainment event was held in the city of Rafah for displaced children with the aim of supporting them psychologically and socially in light of the enormous suffering they are experiencing due to the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
The event was held in the garden of the Rafah Clinic in Tal al-Sultan, affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). The United Nations news bulletin said on Wednesday morning that in an interview with its correspondent in Gaza, Ziad Taleb, one of the organizers of the event, Ms. Sulafa Abu Hilal, said that the event included drawing activities, children’s songs, dancing, and sports activities with the aim of getting the children out of the difficult atmosphere they are living in during the war.
She went on to say: “These conditions (current in Gaza) are not suitable for children, and they have the right to live the childhood life they are accustomed to in freedom, and they have the right to be happy and play. This is the normal life of a child. The children of Gaza were deprived of these things, and their feelings of childhood were killed and replaced by feelings of fear.” And deprivation of all rights. The event aimed to achieve a kind of safety and joy and return them to the childhood atmosphere they were supposed to live.”
Sulafa Abu Hilal said that these activities will continue at the level of Rafah clinics and will be held during the morning and evening periods in three clinics: Tal Al-Sultan, Al-Balad, and Al-Shaboura. She continued: "We will continue as much as we can for the benefit of these children and to relieve them as much as possible." Mrs. Abu Hilal said that the parents felt a mixture of feelings of joy, sadness, and despair, but they felt a glimmer of hope in light of this bad atmosphere they are experiencing.
In turn, Mrs. Julia Fawaz Kullab said that the event was a psychological release for the children because of the suffering they are experiencing of oppression, injustice, and terror due to the battles, the sounds of planes and missiles that they sleep and wake up to, and the destruction and displacement in the midst of winter without shelter or cover.
She warned that children are living in hysterical terror and need even a little psychological support, noting that the situation that the children of Palestine - and Gaza in particular - are going through is devastating for any child.
In addition to the life-saving assistance that UNRWA provides in Gaza to approximately two million people, the Agency continues to provide psychosocial support and psychological care to residents of its shelters.
14 heads of UN and international agencies stressed the need to continue supporting UNRWA and not prevent it from implementing its mandate of serving people in dire need of aid. They said, "The allegations that a number of UNRWA employees were involved in the heinous attacks on Israel on October 7 are horrific."

This came in a joint statement issued by what is known as the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, which is the highest platform for humanitarian coordination in the United Nations system. The officials* confirmed what the Secretary-General said about the need to hold accountable any UN employee who participates in terrorist acts.
They said that the growing terrible events in Gaza since October 7 have left hundreds of thousands homeless and on the brink of starvation. They added that UNRWA, as the largest humanitarian organization in Gaza, provides food, shelter and protection to the population even as its employees are displaced and killed.
The officials said that the decision of some UN member states to suspend funding for UNRWA would have catastrophic consequences for the residents of Gaza. They stressed that no other party has the capacity to deliver the volume and scope of aid urgently needed by 2.2 million people in Gaza. They called on those countries to reconsider suspending funding for UNRWA.
The officials pointed to UNRWA's announcement of a full, independent review of its work, and the investigation being conducted by the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight. In their joint statement, the officials said that withdrawing funding from UNRWA is dangerous and will lead to the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza with far-reaching humanitarian and human rights consequences in the occupied Palestinian territory and throughout the region.
They concluded the statement by saying: The world cannot abandon the people of Gaza.
The signatory officials to the joint statement are:
• Martin Griffiths, Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
• Jane Buckhurst, President (Christian Aid)
• Jamie Moon, Executive Director, International Council of Voluntary Agencies
• Amy Pope, Director-General of the International Organization for Migration
• Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
• Paula Gaviria Bettencourt, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons
• Achim Steiner, Director of the United Nations Development Programme
• Natalia Kanem, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund
• Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
• Michel Mlinar, Acting Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat)
• Catherine Russell, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
• Sima Bahouth, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women
• Cindy McCain, Executive Director of the World Food Programme
• Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization.