Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for Secretary-General António Guterres said “Today marks 15 years since the start of the blockade of the Gaza Strip. Our humanitarian colleagues say that – largely due to the blockade, poverty, high unemployment rates and other factors – nearly 80 percent of Gazans now rely on humanitarian assistance.”
More than half of Gaza’s more than two million people live in poverty, and nearly 80 per cent of the youth there are unemployed, the UN News Centrer quoted the spokesman as saying in a press briefing.
This year, humanitarians need $510 million to provide food, water, sanitation and health services to 1.6 million people. The appeal is currently just 25 per cent funded, Dujarric said.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA, needs an extra $72 million by the end of September for its Gaza emergency food programme, to meet the food needs of 1.1 million Palestinian refugees through the end of the year, Dujarric added.
The World Food Programme also needs an extra $35 million to compensate for increasing commodity prices, he noted.
More needs to be done to alleviate the humanitarian situation, with the eventual goal of a full lifting of the Israeli closures, in line with Security Council resolution 1860 of 2009, he said.
Only sustainable political solutions will relieve the pressures on the long-suffering people of Gaza, he added.
Efforts must also continue to encourage all Palestinian political factions towards political consensus and bringing Gaza and the occupied West Bank under one legitimate, democratic Palestinian authority, he concluded.
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