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href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/un-warns-gaza-food-aid-about-run-out">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/un-warns-gaza-food-aid-about-run-out</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">UN warns that Gaza food aid about to
run out</h1>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy">Maureen
Clare Murphy</a></span> <span class="field field-blog">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2019-05-14T23:08:34+00:00">14 May 2019</span></span>
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<figure id="file-78811"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><figcaption><small><span></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>Every one in two Palestinians in Gaza is food aid
dependent, and the largest provider of humanitarian
assistance in the territory is warning that it may
soon be unable to provide that aid.</p>
<p>UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestine
refugees, <a
href="https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/more-one-million-people-gaza-%E2%80%93-half-population-territory-%E2%80%93-may-not-have">stated</a>
on Monday that it must secure $60 million by June to
be able to provide food aid to one million Palestinian
refugees in Gaza – half of the territory’s population.</p>
<p>Some 620,000 Palestinians in Gaza survive on $1.60
per day. An additional 390,000 survive on around $3.50
per day, according to the agency.</p>
<p>It is the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/high-cost-keeping-gaza-under-siege">latest
plea</a> by a UN body for increased international
assistance to Gaza, where, as UNRWA puts it,
“financial support has been outpaced by the growth in
needs.”</p>
<h2>Israeli siege increases need</h2>
<p>Those needs are a direct consequence of Israel’s
land, sea and air blockade on the territory, now in
its 12th year, and successive Israeli military
offensives that have wrought widespread destruction
and greatly diminished Gaza’s productive sector.</p>
<p>The International Committee of the Red Cross has <a
href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-blockade-icrc/israels-gaza-blockade-breaks-law-says-icrc-idUSTRE65D00R20100614">said</a>
that Israel’s blockade of Gaza violates the Fourth
Geneva Convention.</p>
<p>Israel’s use of force in the territory has been the
subject of multiple UN commissions of inquiry.</p>
<p>“From fewer than 80,000 Palestine refugees receiving
UNRWA social assistance in Gaza in the year 2000,
there are today over one million people who need
emergency food assistance without which they cannot
get through their day,” the agency stated.</p>
<p>More than half of Gaza’s population is unemployed,
one of the highest rates in the world. International
aid and remittances from abroad “have held Gaza back
from the brink of total collapse,” according to UNRWA.</p>
<p>Last year the US, formerly UNRWA’s single largest
donor, said that it would stop funding the agency. In
addition to freezing $300 million in funding to UNRWA,
the US cut $200 million in bilateral aid to the West
Bank and Gaza.</p>
<p>The aid cuts are at once a <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/us-slashes-aid-gaza-hospitals-run-out-fuel">punishment</a>
against the Palestinian leadership for protesting <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/oh-jerusalem-requiem-two-state-solution/22521">Trump’s
recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel</a>
and an attempt to bludgeon Palestinians into
submitting to the White House’s “peace” process and <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/how-israel-hopes-make-palestinian-refugees-disappear">erase</a>
Palestinian refugees <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/omar-karmi/jared-kushners-sleight-hand">out
of existence</a>.</p>
<p>“The American administration’s actions are part of a
wider campaign that aims at imposing a one-sided
solution on Palestinian refugees – contrary to
international law, relevant UN resolutions, and the
principle of justice,” the Palestinian Human Rights
Organizations Council <a
href="http://mezan.org/en/post/23526">stated</a> on
Tuesday.</p>
<p>The council called on the UN General Assembly “to
establish a mandatory financing mechanism, rather than
voluntary state contributions, in order to secure
consistent and sustainable funding of UNRWA,” with an
expanded mandate “to fulfill the legal protection
standards that refugees are entitled to.”</p>
<p>UNRWA – in contrast to the UN High Commission for
Refugees, which looks after refugees from the rest of
the world – has <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/how-israel-hopes-make-palestinian-refugees-disappear">no
mandate</a> to facilitate the exercise the right of
return home for refugees.</p>
<h2>8.7 million Palestinian refugees worldwide</h2>
<p>Today there are 8.7 million Palestinian refugees and
displaced persons worldwide, constituting two-thirds
of the Palestinian people.</p>
<p>“Israel’s failure to respect the right to return for
Palestinians who were forced to flee their homes in
1948 is a flagrant violation of international law that
has fuelled decades of suffering on a mass scale for
Palestinian refugees across the region,” Amnesty
International stated on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Every two in three Palestinians in Gaza is a refugee
from towns and villages now inside Israel.
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/one-year-gazas-great-march-return">For
more than a year</a> Palestinians in the territory
have protested against the blockade and to demand
their right to return to the lands from which their
families were expelled before, during and after the
establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.</p>
<p>More than 200 Palestinians have been killed during
the protests, dubbed the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/great-march-return">Great
March of Return</a>.</p>
<p>Around 60 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli
military during protests in Gaza this day last year,
and a further 1,300 were <a
href="https://www.msf.org/gaza-one-year-after-protests-bloodiest-day-palestine">injured
by live ammunition</a>, making it the bloodiest day
yet during the Great March of Return.</p>
<p>The <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/nearly-300-palestinians-killed-29000-injured-2018">staggering</a>
number of casualties during the protests has
overwhelmed Gaza’s healthcare system.</p>
<p>Some 1,700 Palestinians injured during the Gaza
demonstrations may require amputations because
specialized treatment for what medical groups have
described as war injuries resulting from Israeli army
sniper fire is unavailable.</p>
<p>The UN is seeking $20 million for Gaza’s medical
facilities which are “under very serious stress,”
Jamie McGoldrick, a humanitarian official with the
world body, stated <a
href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/05/1038101">last
week</a>.</p>
<h2>Two thousand Gaza families still displaced</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs <a
href="https://www.ochaopt.org/content/march-escalations-gaza-result-more-displacement">said</a>
that as of the end of April, there was no funding to
cover the basic needs of Palestinians in Gaza still
displaced from Israel’s 51-day military offensive on
the territory five years ago.</p>
<p>More than <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/balance-un-gaza-report-cant-hide-massive-israeli-war-crimes">2,200
Palestinians were killed</a> during that offensive,
and 17,800 homes were destroyed or severely damaged.</p>
<p>Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in the summer of 2014
resulted in the largest internal displacement of
Palestinians since 1967, when Israel occupied the
territory, along with the West Bank, the Syrian Golan
Heights and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula (from which Israel
later withdrew).</p>
<p>As of February this year, more than 2,200 Palestinian
families – or 12,300 people – were still displaced as
a result of the 2014 offensive.</p>
<p>Nearly $130 million is needed to address needs
resulting from the offensive, according to OCHA,
“including for shelter repair ($75 million),
reconstruction of houses ($47 million) and cash
assistance ($6.5 million).”</p>
<p><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/eus-destructive-peace-partner">Israel
habitually destroys</a> Palestinian infrastructure
in Gaza and third states pay for its reconstruction,
with no cost to Israel, which controls what raw
materials for reconstruction are brought into the
territory.</p>
<p>Gaza’s population is repeatedly brought to the brink
before a stop-gap aid contribution prevents total
catastrophe.</p>
<p><a
href="https://www.ochaopt.org/content/critical-funding-shortages-threaten-all-humanitarian-responses-opt">Last
year</a>, OCHA warned that following Israel’s 2014
military assault – after which third-party states <a
href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/rebuilding-gaza-donor-pledges#1">pledged
$3.5 billion</a> to rebuild the devastated territory
– “humanitarian financing to the occupied Palestinian
territory has been gradually, but definitively,
decreasing year on year.”</p>
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