Nuseirat Refugee Camp, Palestinian Territories: Employees of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees marched through Gaza's Nuseirat refugee camp on Monday to protest expected job cuts by the vital service provider, AFP journalists reported.
Dozens of men, women and children walked through the streets of the central Gaza camp, heading towards one of the agency's many schools in Gaza.
UNRWA, as the agency is known, is one of the Palestinian territory's largest service providers, offering healthcare and education making use of its thousands of staff and logistics networks.
"This march and this event are intended to make it clear that we oppose the dismissal of any employee, because dismissing employees means ending services for refugees and a decline in the quality of services," head of the staff union Mustafa al-Ghour told AFP.
Demonstrators including UNRWA beneficiaries held signs that read "No to job cuts" and "No to reducing refugee services".
"The agency has been experiencing unprecedented financial and operational difficulties for some time now and difficult decisions may be necessary in the near future," UNRWA spokesman Jonathan Fowler told AFP.
Fowler said that the matter was currently under review and that the agency could not comment in more detail for the time being.
UNRWA currently employs 10,500 people in Gaza, and 4,500 in the occupied West Bank.
In September, UNRWA's acting commissioner-general Christian Saunders had warned he would be forced to cut long-term services to refugees if his agency could not begin to bridge a $100 million shortfall in the next two months.
