Japan donates $10m to UNRWA programs

The Japanese government Wednesday donated $10 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to provide funding for 10 health clinics in Gaza in 2012, according to a statement by the Japanese embassy in Jordan. The agreement was signed at a ceremony in the Jordanian capital Amman by Filippo Grandi, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, and Junichi Kosuge, Ambassador of Japan to Jordan. The statement said that this donation “comes as an effort to improve the difficult living conditions faced by Palestinian refugees and to support the two-state solution; which will achieve a peaceful coexistence between Israel and the Palestinian state.” “At a time when the government and people of Japan are still under pressure to address needs nearer to home and to recover from the devastating earthquake and tsunami, their generosity towards the Agency and Palestine refugees is particularly touching,” said Grandi. “I have always been struck on my trips to Japan since the disaster by the amazing solidarity that exists is between the two peoples,” he added. Japan’s assistance to the Palestinian refugees through UNRWA, which began in 1953, has amounted to more than $600 million.