The Lancet and UNRWA, and in collaboration with the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA), are pleased to invite you to participate in a meeting aiming to raise global awareness on the health situation of the 5.8 million Palestine refugees in Palestine (West Bank and Gaza), Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
The event will be held on the margins of the 70th World Health Assembly, under the theme:
‘No Health without Peace for Palestinians and Palestine refugees’
Ongoing conflicts are detrimental to health and to achieving, in particular, SDGs 3 & 16 targets
A panel discussion will explore the factors that negatively affect the health and well-being of Palestinians and Palestine refugees, who live under extremely volatile and difficult conditions, especially in a region where occupation, conflicts and instability are prevailing, and the possible ways to deliver lifesaving and essential health services in such contexts.
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Background and objectives for the side meeting
Background:
In 2015, the General Assembly adopted 17 SDGs, each with specific targets for the next 15 years, to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda. It is affirmed that there can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development.
In a world facing an unprecedented 65.3 million people who have been forcibly displaced worldwide, including nearly 21.3 million refugees, in addition to some 5 million Palestine refugees, and where nearly 34,000 people are forcibly displaced every day as a result of conflict or persecution, all countries should not rest before achieving the SDG goals.
It will be impossible to fully achieve the other 16 SDGs, particularly SDG 3 “the health goal”: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, without achieving SDG number 16; the so-called “peace goal”: peace, justice, and strong institutions. Peace is essential—and in fact, non-negotiable—to ensure a healthy, productive global population. In the absence of peace, as is the case in the Middle East, there will be no health.
The crisis is still ongoing for the sixth year in Syria, and it had affected Palestine refugees who are still living in this country and who fled to neighboring countries, and the same is true for the chronic and acute conflicts, blockade, and occupation in the occupied Palestinian territories affecting Palestinians and Palestine refugees. Politics and health are inextricably linked, and we cannot expect to eliminate health inequities and to achieve universal health coverage or even to secure the basic human rights for the most vulnerable populations if we sit back and let the injustices of war reign supreme.
Therefore, it is hard to determine whether or not the SDG 3 targets for the health of Palestinians and Palestine refugees could be met, and this would even be harder without achieving SDG 16 targets.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), established in 1949, provides humanitarian assistance through education, health-care, and relief and social services, to 5.8 million registered Palestine refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza, West Bank and Syria. UNRWA provides services to Palestine refugees living in a turbulent region where conflicts and other forms of violence are affecting all people, especially the vulnerable refugees. In addition, UNRWA is committed to work towards achieving the targets of SDGs and they are included in its strategic plans for all programmes that it runs in all fields of its operations.
Objectives:
1. Present the impact of conflicts, blockade, and occupation in the occupied Palestinian territory on the health of Palestinians and Palestine refugees.
2. Discuss the progress and challenges in achieving SDG 3 (health goal) and its relationship with achieving SDG 16 (peace goal).
3. Emphasize that there is no health without peace for Palestinians and Palestine refugees.