UNRWA saves “Palestinian refugee memory” in secret operation
OCCUPIED QUDS, May 19 (YPA) – The British newspaper The Guardian has revealed a complex, secret operation conducted by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) over nearly ten months.
The operation successfully rescued millions of historical documents chronicling the Palestinian refugee journey since the 1948 Nakba, evacuating them from threatened areas in the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem (Quds) to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, amid fears of loss or destruction due to the ongoing Israeli aggression.
Details of the Secured Archive
According to the report, the secured archive constitutes a highly sensitive historical and humanitarian record, featuring:
- Documents pertaining to the lives of millions of Palestinian refugees (marriage contracts, birth and death certificates, and official registration files).
- Records documenting the establishment and evolution of the first Palestinian refugee camps over the decades.
- Tens of millions of documents covering UNRWA’s five fields of operations (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem).
UNRWA Media Advisor, Adnan Abu Hasna, emphasized that these archives are not merely administrative papers; rather, they represent the collective memory of the Palestinian people and the story of their displacement spanning more than seven decades. He stressed that protecting this historical heritage lies at the core of the agency’s mandate to preserve the Palestinian identity and safeguard the historical narrative of the refugees.
Behind the Scenes of the Evacuation
A network of the agency’s staff across several countries participated in the evacuation operation, which involved:
- Retrieving document crates from areas subjected to intense bombardment inside the Gaza Strip.
- Smuggling them through secret routes into Egyptian territory.
- Airlifting them to the Jordanian capital, Amman, aboard dedicated Jordanian aircraft to secure the archive in safe locations.
UN sources confirmed that this extraordinary measure was driven by growing anxieties over the potential loss or complete destruction of these rare documents due to ongoing military operations in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, prompting the agency to act urgently to protect one of the most critical archives tied to the history of the Palestinian cause.
YPA