UNRWA suspends cash aid in Gaza due to lack of fund | Cairo Post - 0 views
www.thecairopost.com/...id-in-gaza-due-to-lack-of-fund
war & peace Gaza humanitarian-aid funding-crisis UNRWA
shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Jan 15
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The cash assistance program in Gaza has been suspended due to lack of fund, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) announced Tuesday. The program urgently called for raising U.S. $100 million in aid in the first three months of 2015 to 12,000 displaced Palestinians in Gaza, mostly to repair their homes damaged during the latest 51-day war between Palestine and Israel in July and August 2014. “US$ 720 million is required to address this need. To date, UNRWA has received only US$ 135 million in pledges, leaving a shortfall of US$ 585 million,” the UNRWA said in a statement Tuesday. “We are talking about thousands of families who continue to suffer through this cold winter with inadequate shelter. People are literally sleeping amongst the rubble; children have died of hypothermia,” UNRWA Director in Gaza Robert Turner was quoted as saying in the statement.
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U.S. $ 5.4 billion were pledged at a Cairo-based donor conference on Gaza reconstruction Oct. 12, 2014; however, the program statement noted that none of the announced aid has reached Gaza strip, saying “this is distressing and unacceptable.” “People are desperate and the international community cannot even provide the bare minimum – for example a repaired home in winter – let alone a lifting of the blockade, access to markets or freedom of movement,” Turner continued. UNRWA was established in 1949 to provide more than 5 million registered Palestinian refugees in neighboring countries with aid. In a previous statement, the UNRWA announced that it had spent the “last available dollar on repairs and temporary shelter cash assistance.”
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Under international law, Israel as the occupier of Palestine and Gaza, bears all financial responsibility for humanitarian aid in Gaza. I'd be all for the U.S. suspending all financial and other forms of aid to Israel until Gaza is repaired, its siege ended, all illegal settlements in the West Bank are removed, and Palestinians driven out of Israel in 1948 (and their heirs) have their property within Israel restored. And if necessary, sending in the U.S. military to ensure that all happens muy pronto. But I'm not holding my breath until that happens.