Hamas welcomes new UNRWA commissioner

The refugees’ affairs department in the Hamas Movement welcomed the appointment of the Italian national Filippo Grandi as the new commissioner general of UNRWA in place of outgoing commissioner Karen Abu Zaid.

Hussam Al-Ahmed, the head of the department, asked Grandi in a press release on Saturday to defend the Palestinian refugees’ rights and dignity.

He asked the new commissioner, who served as a deputy commissioner since September 2005, to stop shrinking UNRWA services and to play an active role in solving the problem of Palestinian refugees stranded on the borders between Syria and Iraq.

Ahmed asked UNRWA to include the Palestinian refugee in Iraq in its records to enable them benefit form its services and to assume its duty towards them.

He said that UNRWA should also start the reconstruction of Nahr El-Bared refugee cam in Lebanon and to urge Beirut to grant Palestinian refugees civil rights.

UNRWA is obliged to extend relief to the Palestinian refugees and to employ them until they go back to their homes, Ahmed said, adding that UNRWA’s mission falls in line with the world community’s responsibility toward those refugees.