No money no summer camps for Gaza kids (REPORT)

(PHOTO: UNRWAThe United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees is cancelling its annual summer camps for children in the Gaza Strip, saying it has failed to raise enough money.

"It was decided to stop the Summer Games programme in the Gaza Strip for 2012 due to not having received sufficient funding from donors, that is $9.9 million (7.5 million euros)," said Adnan Abu Hasna, spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), in Gaza.

He said that UNRWA had received pledges of $3.3 million, "but that's not enough to cover expenses. That's why we decided to allocate these funds to basic humanitarian services and resume the games in 2013 if we get the necessary financial support," he said.

UNRWA's "Summer Games" programme caters to around 250,000 children at 1,200 sites in the Gaza Strip during six weeks of summer holidays.

Last year and in 2010 campsites were vandalised by unknown attackers but activities still carried on.

The attacks were blamed on Muslim extremists who view the camps as a symbol of Western corruption because boys and girls mingle freely.

Abu Hasna said that the cancellation of this year's events was a blow to the children and to around 9,000 older Palestinian youths who would have had summer jobs helping to run the camps.

UNRWA cares for nearly five million Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, including more than one million in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

- This article originally appeared in Middle East Online

IOC Nudges Palestinians and Israelis Closer - in Lausanne (Report)

(HN, January 21, 2011) -- Snow-covered Lausanne was the setting Thursday for top officials from the Palestinian and Israeli Olympic committees to try to bridge differences and seek common ground for cooperation.

Nader Al Masri - the only athlete from the Gaza Strip in Beijing, one of the four-strong Palestinian team.

According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the two sides conducted cordial and productive discussions - to the point of the Israelis offering Palestinian athletes training facilities for the 2012 London Olympics.

"The representatives of the Olympic Committee of Israel said that they were ready to offer training opportunities to Palestinian athletes." the IOC said in a statement sent to HUMNEWS.

The IOC also confirmed that it would provide experts to work on a long-term sports development strategy in Palestine in order to continue to assist not only the athletes but also coaches and sports administrators, and to identify ways to better promote sport and its values at grassroots level, the statement said.

The two sides agreed to meet in Lausanne following IOC President Jacques Rogge’s visit to the Middle East last October. During that visit he must have seen the dilapidated state of sports and training facilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A second meeting will be scheduled in two months’ time to review the progress made, the IOC said.

There was also an indication that the Israelis agreed to ease access for Palestinian athletes, coaches, officials and sports material, as well as foreign visiting athletes.

Athletes from the Palestinian Territory were first represented at the Olympic Games at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

- HUMNEWS staff, IOC