Israel Blocks Food To 600,000 Palestinians
Israeli Restrictions Force Suspension Of Food Aid In Gaza – UN Relief Agency
The main United Nations relief agency for Palestine refugees today suspended emergency food aid to some 600,000 people
in Gaza – about half of all those receiving such assistance in the occupied Palestinian territories – following new
Israeli restrictions at the sole commercial crossing point.
“If the new restrictions in Gaza continue, I fear we could see real hunger emerge for the first time in two
generations,” UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Peter Hansen said, appealing to Israel to lift the
measures. “Israel’s legitimate and serious security concerns will not be served by hindering the emergency relief work
of the United Nations.”
Under normal circumstances UNRWA delivers some 250 tons of food aid per day in Gaza alone as part of a wider programme
of emergency assistance to refugees initiated shortly after the outbreak of strife in the West Bank and Gaza in
September 2000.
Efforts to persuade Israel to lift the restriction on the transport of UNRWA’s empty food containers out of Gaza have so
far failed, forcing the suspension of delivery of 11,000 tons of food from Ashdod port to avoid a bottleneck which would
result in prohibitive costs.
Stocks of rice, flour, cooking oil and other essential foods that UNRWA provides to refugees reduced to poverty or
otherwise affected by the 42-month long humanitarian crisis have been fully depleted.
UNRWA noted that it was not alone in facing chronic obstacles to the flow of humanitarian assistance. All UN agencies in
the West Bank and Gaza have confronted similar experiences and in a joint statement last week called without success on
Israel to loosen restrictions in Gaza.