UNRWA has been with me since birth, I cannot imagine a future without it

The UN body has been part of the lives of millions of Palestinian refugees. Post-genocide Gaza cannot cope without it.

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I do not recall my first encounter with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) because I was just a baby. In the months after I was born, medics gave me my first vaccines in an UNRWA-run clinic. Since then, the agency has been present in almost every part of my life. It has become a core piece of my identity as a Palestinian refugee.

And so, as I read in the news statements by US officials that UNRWA needs to be banned from Gaza, as I hear that Israel is preparing to raid an UNRWA compound in occupied East Jerusalem, which houses schools and clinics, or that the Israeli High Court is likely to reject an appeal against anti-UNRWA laws, my heart is aching.