Population of Gaza is in peril, says UN relief chief

THE head of the UN relief agency in Gaza has called on Israel to allow immediate access for supplies and aid into the war-torn region warning that up to 90% of its citizens are surviving on handouts.

Attempts were being made to prevent the radicalisation of hundreds of thousands of children in the enclave, said John Ging, director of the region’s UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Appearing before a packed Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee, the Irishman was quizzed about Gaza following Israel’s offensive there this year which left a reported 1,400 people dead. “We will not succeed unless the situation on the ground changes,” he warned TDs, senators and several ambassadors who also attended. “There’s a civilian population in peril.”

But both the Israelis and the Palestinians were turning to violence, he said. Rocket attacks into Israel had to stop and any peace process similar to the North’s needed a complete cessation of violence, he said. But there had been no relaxing of border restrictions in and out of Gaza, said Mr Ging. This had left Gaza’s 1.5 million people in a desperate situation, led to increased smuggling in tunnels from Egypt and offered them little alternative to the conflict. “People are now languishing in the rubble of their despair,” he said.

Committee head Michael Woods said Irish people had been shocked by images of destruction in Gaza.

Alan Shatter, the Dáil’s only Jewish TD, pointed to reports that there had been 200 rocket attacks by Palestinians into Israel since the offensive had ended. Mr Ging said an “unequivocal commitment” was needed by Hamas to support peace talks in Cairo. Nonetheless when rocket attacks had ceased for five months last year, border crossings had tightened, he added.

He pointed to the UN agency’s attempt to educate the 200,000 children in Gaza about human rights. But college students awarded international scholarships were not allowed leave, he said. Mr Ging welcomed the US appointment of George Mitchell as special envoy to the Middle East.

The Israeli embassy last night said the country had tried as far as possible to support the UNRWA in Gaza.