Following the Oslo Accords, thousands of residents were employed in the various government ministries and security services, while others were employed by the UNRWA and other international organizations that support development of the city.
UNRWA chief in Gaza John Ging said he believed the dispute over the syllabus had more to do with attempts by Hamas to meddle in the U.N. organization's affairs than with the Holocaust.
With the influx of more refugees, 2,990 prefabricated structures were constructed between 1969 and 1971 by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
From 1968 to 1971 Rennie was UNRWA deputy Commissioner-General under Laurence Michelmore, who persuaded then-U.N. Secretary-General U Thant to appoint Rennie as his successor.
In 1998, two years before the Al-Aqsa intifada, Democrat member of United States House of Representatives Peter Deutsch and other congressmembers directed the State Department to ask UNRWA to investigate evidence that school books used in UNRWA-run schools in the West Bank and Gaza contained anti-Semitic statements.