1. Home
  2. Saudi Arabia reaffirms support for Palestinian refugees

Saudi Arabia reaffirms support for Palestinian refugees

November 11, 2016

United Nations, Nov 11: Saudi Arabia has reaffirmed its continued support for the Palestinian refugees and UNRWA, the UN body that looks after their welfare.

riyadh

The Kingdom's reassurance came during a speech delivered by its permanent representative at the United Nations, Abdullah Al-Muallimi, at an UNRWA committee meeting

“The Kingdom is honored to stand by the side of the Palestinian people stemming from its religious and humanitarian duty until the Palestinians achieve their legitimate right to live in freedom, dignity and have access to all their legitimate and inalienable rights. In this domain, the Kingdom highly appreciates the fundamental role of the UNRWA’s humanitarian care for more than 5 million Palestinians,” Al-Muallimi said.

He said Saudi Arabia continued to top the list of major donors to UNRWA, alongside the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom. This year, the Kingdom has contributed some $100 million.

The Kingdom has been an active member of the UNRWA Advisory Commission since 2005 and provides advice and assistance to the commissioner general in the scope of implementation of his mandate.

He said the Kingdom made a donation of $59 million through the Saudi Development Fund to UNRWA for the education, health and housing projects to be implemented in Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan.

The donation was made through three agreements signed in London on Feb. 4. The first agreement worth more than $40 million will go to support the ongoing projects in Gaza, including more than 600 houses for Palestinians who had their homes destroyed during the Israeli assault on Gaza, along with maintenance of three schools. The second agreement worth $8 million will go to finance the maintenance of nine UNRWA schools and 10 health centers in Jordan. While the third agreement worth more than $7 million will provide funding for rebuilding, equipping and furnishing of three health centers in the West Bank, said the ambassador.

Al-Muallimi said Saudi Arabia has donated $10 million through the Saudi Development Fund to build a larger base and supply depot in Rafah. This will serve as the main UNRWA warehouse for storing basic food and non-food items, and also to support the distribution operations through 12 distribution centers throughout the Gaza Strip, he added.

“This project is part of a comprehensive project signed between UNRWA and the Saudi Development Fund in May 2015 to rebuild and renovate residential units and supply warehouses, and to support the health and education sectors in the Gaza Strip with a total value estimated at $62 million. Construction of the supply depot is expected to be completed in 2017 and will be operational with a crew of about 200 people, including UNRWA staff members and persons who will work on job-creation issues.”

Saudi Arabia also contributed approximately $2 million to build a health center in Aqabat Jaber Camp located in the Jordan Valley to meet the necessary health needs of Palestinian refugees in the camp within a safe environment. This center was opened on Oct. 28, and will benefit more than 14,000 camp residents, said the ambassador.

He said: “We stress our full support for UNRWA’s humanitarian goals and to continue its work to alleviate the tragedy of the Palestinian people and reduce their suffering until the return of the displaced to their home country, and give them the necessary compensations for the extensive damage they suffered during the past decades in accordance with Resolution 194 of the General Assembly.”

“We therefore support the efforts to address the root causes of this crisis and stop the forced and chronic displacement of the refugees through ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and the rest of the Arab lands, and that Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, and makes progress toward implementing the two-state solution,” Al-Muallimi added.

Comments

naren kotian
 - 
Friday, 11 Nov 2016

we support israel , long live israel ... temple mount jindabad ... hahaha....

Add new comment

About text formats
  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
February 24,2020

Dubai, Feb 24: Kuwait and Bahrain confirmed on Monday their first novel coronavirus cases, the countries' health ministries announced, adding all had come from Iran.

Kuwait reported three infections and Bahrain one in citizens who had returned home from the Islamic republic.

Comments

Add new comment

About text formats
  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
May 7,2020

Dubai, May 7: Saudi Arabia will emerge as the victor of the oil price war that sent global crude markets into a spin last month, according to two experts in the energy industry.

Jason Bordoff, professor and founding director of the Center for Global Energy policy at New York’s Columbia University, said: “While 2020 will be remembered as a year of carnage for oil nations, at least one will most likely emerge from the pandemic stronger, both economically and geopolitically: Saudi Arabia.”

Writing in the American publication Foreign Policy, Bordoff said that the Kingdom’s finances can weather the storm from lower oil prices as a result of the drastically reduced demand for oil in economies under pandemic lockdowns, and that it will end up with higher oil revenues and a bigger share of the global market once it stabilizes.

Bordoff’s view was reinforced by Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, former chairman of Royal Dutch Shell and one of the longest-standing directors of Saudi Aramco. In an interview with the Gulf Intelligence energy consultancy, he said that low-cost oil producers such as Saudi Arabia would emerge from the pandemic with increased market share.

“Oil is the only commodity where the lowest-cost producers have contained their production and allowed high-cost producers to benefit. When demand recovers this year or next, we will emerge from it with the lowest-cost producers having increased their market share,” Moody-Stuart said.

Bordfoff said that it would take years for the high-cost American shale industry to recover to pre-pandemic levels of output. “Depending on how long oil demand remains depressed, US oil production is projected to decline from its pre-coronavirus peak of around 13 million barrels per day.

“Shale's heady growth in recent years (with production growing by about 1 million to 1.5 million barrels per day each year) also reflected irrational exuberance in financial markets. Many US companies struggling with uneconomical production only managed to stay afloat with infusions of cheap debt. One quarter of US shale oil production may have been uneconomic even before prices crashed,” he said.

Moody-Stuart said that recent statements about cuts to the Saudi Arabian budget as a result of falling oil revenues were “an important step to wean the population of the Kingdom off an entitlement feeling. It means that everybody is joining in it.”

The former Shell boss said that other big oil companies would follow Shell’s recent decision to cut its dividend for the first time in more than 70 years. But he added that Aramco would stick by its commitment to pay $75 billion of dividends this year.

“When a company looks at its forecasts it looks ahead for one year, so for this year it (the dividend) is fine,” he said.

Bordoff added that Saudi Arabia’s action in cutting oil production in response to the pandemic would improve its global position.

“Saudi Arabia has improved its standing in Washington. Following intense pressure from the White House and powerful senators, the Kingdom’s willingness to oblige by cutting production will reverse some of the damage done when it was blamed for the oil crash after it surged production in March,” he said.

“Only a few weeks ago, the outlook for Saudi Arabia seemed bleak. But looking out a few years, it’s difficult to see the Kingdom in anything other than a strengthened position,” Bordoff said.

Comments

Add new comment

About text formats
  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
coastaldigest.com news network
August 3,2020

Sharjah, Aug 3: A 24-year-old Indian engineer has fallen to death from the sixth floor of a residential building on Eid al-Adha in the UAE's Sharjah, a media report said on Monday. 

The electrical engineer, identified with his single name Sumesh, hailed from the south Indian state of Kerala.

He lived in a building in Al Dhaid in Sharjah, from where he fell to death on Friday, the report said, adding that he was apparently talking over the phone and threw it down minutes before the incident.

Sumesh, who came to the UAE a year ago, worked as a designer in Sharjah's Muwaileh area. His roommates said that he had some "personal issues" that had been "bothering him for some time", according to the report.

"It was Eid al-Adha and our cook had made biryani for us. We were all cracking jokes and having a good time. In fact, even Cuckoo (Sumesh) was also laughing with us. He seemed happy. Nobody had anticipated this. I did sense a few times that something was troubling him and I even asked him about it, but he brushed it off," the report quoted his roommate Dileep Kumar as saying.

Shans KF, another roommate, said Sumesh was to travel to India for his annual leave but could not because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The police have launched an investigation and moved the body to the forensic lab for an autopsy.

Comments

Add new comment

About text formats
  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.