Food Crisis Worsening in Gaza

GENEVA (AFP) — Food is running short for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the impoverished Gaza Strip and more aid is urgently needed to prevent a humanitarian crisis, the World Food Programme said on Friday.

Some 302,000 people need food aid in Gaza, equivalent to nearly two-thirds of the population not including refugees, WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume told journalists.

"The situation is getting worse by the day," she said.

Nearly 70 percent of the 1.5 million people in Gaza live on less than 250 dollars (169 euros) a month, while food accounts for 60 percent of household expenditure.

Gaza has been under strict economic sanctions since the Islamist Hamas movement seized power in June, with Israel cutting off food and fuel supplies.

Anaemia rates have risen to 77.5 percent as Gaza's isolation has deepened, Berthiaume said.

The WFP said it has raised its Gaza appeal budget to 141 million dollars due to higher logistical costs and the rising price of foodstuffs.

The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees warned on Thursday that the isolation of Gaza was causing untold misery and fostering extremism.

"I would like the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza to be acknowledged and there to be some recognition that only a third of the people in Gaza support Hamas," said Karen Koning AbuZayd, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency.

"We are seeing evidence of stunting of the children, their growth is slowing, because our ration is only 61 percent of what people should have and that has to be supplemented," she said.

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Israel Must Change its Policies in Ending the Isolation of the People of Gaza

Oxfam Press Release - December 2007

For aid to be effective, donors need to insist Israel changes its policies towards occupied Palestinian Territories

For aid to be effective, donors need to insist Israel changes its policies towards occupied Palestinian Territories Millions of dollars of aid is being lost due to Israeli policies towards the occupied Palestinian territories and must be challenged by donor governments meeting in Paris to pledge funds for the Palestinian Authority this Monday, according to aid agency Oxfam International.

Jeremy Hobbs, head of Oxfam International, said: “More aid will not be effective until donor governments insist on a rapid change in Israel’s movement restrictions in the occupied Palestinian territories and the ending of the blockade of the Gaza Strip. Many governments around the world are generous donors to the Palestinians. Their aid is vital to help build the Palestinian economy and a viable state. But donor governments are not sufficiently critical of Israeli policies, which wreck the projects they fund. They are investing precious aid funds, but without holding Israel accountable this aid will be more and more ineffective.

“It is not enough simply to plough more money into Palestine – foreign governments and the Palestinian Authority must increase the pressure on the Israeli government to lift the blockade of Gaza and make it possible for people in the West Bank to go about their business. This is essential if the Annapolis peace process is to work."

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