The sixtieth consecutive year of UNRWA operations in 2009 is a moment to reflect on multiple dimensions of the organization, its beneficiaries, and the international political and humanitarian context from which it emanates. The crucial basic human services that UNRWA continues to provide the refugees include elements of education, health care, shelter, food, emergency relief, and protection. Perhaps equally important today is the wider significance of UNRWA's role and activities in its sixtieth year, when all refugees share the condition of refugeehood that transcends physical conditions, political rights, or material well-being. The refugees to a large extent feel uncanvassed and isolated from the Palestinian national debate and decision making. Therefore UNRWA's evolution and current activities are all the more significant, as it combines its traditional services provision function with a growing emphasis on speaking out globally to remind the world of the rights of the refugees and the responsibilities of all those who encounter them - whether Israeli occupying authorities, Arab host countries, Western states that sanction some of them, or others. © UNHCR [2010]. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected].

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immigration policy refugee decision making health care service provision Palestine humanitarian aid