Dousa has spent the last few days visiting Israel and the West Bank. Partly to meet representatives of Israel and Palestinian organizations, partly to visit several places, including a border crossing to Gaza.
He is taken by what he has seen.
I have met people who have recently come from Gaza who described how children have to collect plastic bottles to be able to light a fire for the evening, to keep themselves warm. Children who live without shoes and barely have clothes, who do not get medicine and barely get food for the day, says Benjamin Dousa over the phone to TT.
On Monday, he met Mohammad Mustafa, the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA). On Tuesday, he met, among others, Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel.
"A damned responsibility"
Sweden's Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade has expressed a number of views, including that more trucks with supplies must be allowed into the Gaza Strip.
Israel as an occupying power has a damned responsibility to also follow international law. This includes ensuring that aid reaches its destination, he says, adding:
Israel must stop supporting the illegal settlement policy and put an end to the violent settler violence.
The bilateral meetings will be followed up, and it may become relevant for the Swedish government to either stop, reduce or increase aid next year.
Not a single krona
A disputed support of 400 million kronor, which has been paused at times, has been allocated to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) this year. Israel accuses Unrwa of having employees linked to Hamas and has in practice banned the organization from operating on Israeli territory.
If we feel that the money is going to corruption and in the worst case to finance terrorism, it will of course result in significantly reduced or stopped support. Not a single Swedish tax krona should in any way go to financing either terrorism or extremism, says Benjamin Dousa.
For Sweden not to reduce or withdraw its support – but rather perhaps increase it – the Palestinian authorities, among others, need to implement certain reforms.
Then Sweden will also be there to try to support that development.
Sweden has so far in 2024, until mid-December, paid out over 340 million kronor in aid to Palestinian areas. The total aid budget is approximately 35 billion kronor in 2024.
The money goes, among other things, to emergency aid via Unrwa and other UN agencies to the hundreds of thousands of Gazans who, due to the war, are living on the brink of starvation. But a smaller part also goes to programs to promote human rights and democracy on the West Bank.
Previously, Swedish aid to the Palestinian areas has been relatively stable at around half a billion kronor per year.
Source: Openaid
