Relief agency offers food to unpaid workers

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency today said it is adding 100,000 Gaza residents, mostly government employees and their families, to its food distribution programme to meet an increasingly desperate situation there.

Most Palestinian public sector workers have not been paid for three months, and many are facing serious hardships.

“We have expanded our programmes to include helping those who don’t have salaries... in food distribution and all the other programs,” UNRWA Gaza field director John Ging said.

The agency already has 650,000 Gaza refugees in its food distribution programme. Starting June 18, 23,000 families- about 100,000 refugees – will be added.

Many are employees of the Palestinian Authority, which has been able to pay salaries since March.

After Hamas took over the government, Western nations and Israel cut off funding, labelling the Islamists a terrorist organisation.

“If you have no salary, then you need help,” Ging said. “But remember, we are meeting the minimum needs. It is not a solution,” he said.

Other government employees recently demonstrated outside the UNRWA offices, demanding they be included in its basic needs programmes, but Ging said only refugees will be covered. UNRWA was set up after the 1948-49 war that followed Israel’s creation to deal with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes in Israel.

The World Food Programme said on Sunday it will increase the number of non-refugees it feeds in the Palestinian territories by 25 percent from 480,000 to 600,000, in response to an escalating humanitarian crisis.

“It is a deplorable situation that is getting worse every single day,” Ging told reporters. “Everywhere that I have gone, it is not just about the non-payment of salaries. It is about the fact that the public services are beginning to collapse.”

Garbage trucks are not working, hospitals are short of medical supplies, and a fuel shortage is causing problems in water distribution and sewage treatment, he said.

Ging said an international programme to funnel emergency aid into the Palestinian territories is urgently needed to avoid the collapse of public services.

“We want to see the mechanism implemented immediately, we need something,” he said. “If it is not perfect, let’s improve it (later).”

After a meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah today, US Assistant Secretary of State David Welch said the United States and the European Union are considering what to do.

“The economic conditions in West Bank and Gaza are troubling. We are working closely with our EU colleagues to establish a temporary international mechanism to provide direct assistance to Palestinian people,” Welch said.