Gaza sources report that UNRWA has informed 500 of its Gazan employees currently outside the Strip (most of them in Egypt) that starting on February 28, they will be released on unpaid leave.
This is apparently due to UNRWA's financial difficulties.
UNRWA continued to pay them salaries over the past year, even though many of them fled to Egypt through the Rafah crossing (as UNRWA employees, they apparently had enough money to pay the $5,000 exit fee for the skull of the son of the Egyptian president and his Bedouin partner Ibrahim al-Arjani - A.A.).
The employees who will stop receiving salaries complain that they now have no source of income, even though they claim that some of them continued to provide remote services to UNRWA (for example, teachers who teach remotely via the Internet - A.A.).