AMMAN: Kuwait’s Ambassador to Jordan Hamad Al-Marri on Thursday handed over Kuwait’s annual donation to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) worth $2 million to provide basic services to Palestinian refugees.

"This donation from the Kuwaiti government aims to enhance the agency’s activities and programs in the region directed to Palestinian refugees,” Ambassador Al-Marri told KUNA after handing over the contribution to UNRWA’s Director of External Relations and Media Tamara Al-Rifai. He stressed that this support stems from Kuwait’s absolute belief in UNRWA’s important role, noting that despite the accusations and abuse directed at the international agency throughout the past year, it has performed its role in a distinguished manner despite the financial deficit it suffers from.

Al-Marri stressed that Kuwait is aware of UNRWA’s important role in supporting Palestinian refugees, and therefore it continues to provide this contribution out of its belief in supporting the Palestinian cause. For her part, Al-Rifai expressed UNRWA’s gratitude in a similar statement to KUNA. To the State of Kuwait, government and people, for their permanent and firm support for the Palestinian cause and for their generosity and solidarity with the agency and the Palestinian refugee issue in particular. She pointed out that the State of Kuwait has never stopped supporting UNRWA and is keen to increase its political and financial support in every crisis facing the agency, as it did last year by providing aid "so that we can continue providing our humanitarian operations in Gaza in the face of the occupation’s aggression.”

She stressed that the annual support provided by the State of Kuwait to UNRWA goes to the agency’s general budget, which covers all programs and activities in its areas of operation in Gaza, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. UNRWA, which was established in 1949, provides its basic services in health and education to about 5.7 million Palestinian refugees, 40 percent of whom live in Jordan, while the rest are distributed among its areas of operation in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. — KUNA