Food aid demand to rise in Palestinian territories: WFP
AFP
Date: 04-28-06
GENEVA (AFP) - The World Food Programme said it expected the number of people needing food aid in the Palestinian territories to rise by 25 percent in the coming months as rations fail to get through Israeli checkpoints and public workers go unpaid.
WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume said the "highly infrequent entry of food" into the Palestinian territories and the "halting of funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority" had caused the food shortages.
"Given that salaries are no longer being paid, the number of people in need of food aid is also increasing," she said.
The Palestinian Authority stopped paying civil servants' salaries in March after the European Union and United States suspended aid payments in response to the election victory of the Islamist group Hamas, which they see as a terrorist organisation.
The World Bank estimates that 23 percent of the population lives off the salaries of 140,000 Palestinian civil servants.
The WFP currently provides aid to 432,000 people in the occupied territories, but aims to feed 480,000.
Berthiaume said donor countries had not given enough money to allow the WFP to achieve its aim of providing aid to 600,000 people.
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