It is July in the second year of the Coronavirus, and suddenly Africa feels like Europe and the United States in the first months of the pandemic. Reports of infections burning through populations and hospitals nearly buckling under pressure are making news headlines from Johannesburg, Lusaka, and Kinshasa sound like they are being beamed in from Lombardy, New York, and London circa April and May 2020. The intensity of transmission that African states tried to avoid through early and somewhat regular lockdowns in 2020 has finally arrived.
The irony, of course, is that this was avoidable vaccines are available and with them COVID-19 deaths have also become avoidable. In the global North, the narrative is that the impossible has been done vaccines for COVID-19 have been developed in under a year through massive public investment in research and development (R&D), and almost half of the populations of the United States and United Kingdom have been vaccinated.
Jehad Abusalim (American Friends Service Committee)
In this session we examined the situation in the Gaza Strip, including how the Gaza Strip came to be isolated from the West Bank and besieged by Israel, the role of Hamas and related Palestinian political dynamics, and the humanitarian situation in light of repeated Israeli military campaigns, more than a decade of blockade, and now COVID.
Part 5 – Palestinian Refugees and the Role of UNRWA
Featuring:
Gwyn Lewis (UNRWA),
Diba Abu Nejila (humanitarian professional)
In this session we focused on Palestinian refugees – one of the core issues of the conflict and which under the Olso Accords was to be resolved in the context of permanent status talks between Israelis and Palestinians. We will examine how Palestinians became refugees, the role and development of UNRWA as the organization responsible for Palestinian refugees, and the debate around the continued status of many Palestinians as refugees today.
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