2 killed by Russian airstrikes targeting Palestinian refugee camp in

2 killed by Russian airstrikes targeting Palestinian refugee camp in Syria
Oct. 4, 2016 4:51 P.M. (Updated: Oct. 4, 2016 10:31 P.M.)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=773412

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Two volunteer workers were killed Monday morning in
airstrikes targeting Khan al-Shih, a Palestinian refugee camp in war-torn
Syria.

According to a statement on Tuesday released by the Jafra Foundation, a
relief organization operating in Palestinian refugee camps across Syria, two
volunteer members of the Jafra services team, identified as Mohammad Abo
Sitteh, 32, and Abdullah Issa, 22, were killed after Russian warplanes
dropped cluster munitions on the refugee camp.

Two other civilians were injured in the airstrikes.

The Jafra services team, for which Sitteh and Issa volunteered, provides
relief and assistance to 12,000 Palestinian refugees and around 800
internally displaced Syrian families seeking shelter inside the camp.

“Monday’s deadly attacks were preceded by a full week of heavy bombardment
on the Camp, with 50 plus barrel bombs raining down in and around the
outskirts of Khan al-Shih between Tuesday and Sunday evening,” the statement
said.

On Friday, two teachers and four students were injured when a school
operated by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, was targeted by
shelling, leaving some 2,000 refugee children without educational services.

Less than two months prior, 45-year-old Mohammad Mohsen, also a worker for
the Jafra foundation, was reportedly killed by a cluster bomb.

Khan al-Shih has experienced intensified armed conflict in recent months,
resulting in an increasing number of casualties, including Palestine
refugees and other civilians.

More than 25 civilians have reportedly been killed by heavy shelling,
rockets, barrel and cluster bombs since May.

“Continued attacks in recent months have destroyed infrastructure, including
a sewage pit, which has caused suffering and placed the health of all
residents at risk,” the Jafra Foundation said in their statement.

Notably, airstrikes on July 4 destroyed a building housing the foundation’s
Child Friendly Space, a center devoted to providing psychological support,
recreation, and risk and hygiene awareness to over 1,900 children.

Khan al-Shih, once home to more than 30,000 civilians, has seen some 50
percent of its population displaced.

Due to a partial regime-imposed siege and its location between fighting
parties, its some 9,000 residents — including over 3,000 children and 1,000
elderly people — suffer from dire humanitarian conditions and lack of
medical services, according to the Jafra Foundation.

Khan al-Shih, in addition to the Yarmouk refugee camp, are among areas of
active conflict where tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees have been
concentrated since the Syrian conflict began in the form of peaceful
protests in March 2011 and quickly morphed into a civil war, since leaving
more than 400,000 people dead and millions displaced.

Over half a million Palestinians lived across nine refugee camps in Syria
prior to the war, the descendants of some of the 750,000 Palestinians
expelled from their homes during the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Syria’s civil war has seen many of these families displaced a second time,
with up to 280,000 displaced inside Syria, a further 110,000 displaced to
neighbouring countries, including Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt and
increasingly, to Europe.