UN Official Releases Funds to Enable Aid Programs in Gaza amid Israeli Strikes

TEHRAN (defapress) – UN Humanitarian Coordinator Robert Piper released $2.2 million to support health, food and livelihood program in the Gaza Strip amid Israeli strikes against the besieged enclave in the wake of the US president's decision to announce Jerusalem (al-Quds) as the Israeli “capital”.

News ID: 67346

Date: 09 December 2017 - 10:41

According to a news release by the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the allocation authorized Friday by Robert Piper will also enable essential and life-saving child and maternal health interventions, including the provision of incubators and phototherapy equipment to neonatal intensive care units and intensive care units in Gaza hospitals.

"With each day that passes without improvement, hopes diminish and frustrations rise. We must summon the resources and political will to bring change to Gaza,” said Piper in the news release.

"In spite of political movement towards Palestinian reconciliation in recent months, most of the measures adopted by the Palestinian Authority since March 2017, which triggered the latest deterioration in the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, are yet to be reversed,” he added.

It will enable the most vulnerable families in the Gaza Strip to immediately access fresh and nutritious local food through the provision of six-month fresh food vouchers for families falling below the deep poverty line, with insufficient or no access to means of assistance and with limited capacity to meet their households' basic food needs.

It will also support livelihoods and improved food security of farmers to overcome the electricity crisis in the Gaza Strip, through provision of solar power systems and agricultural supplies.

The allocation came after Israeli forces fired artillery shells at a checkpoint belonging to Palestinian resistance forces in the northeast of the town of Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, on Friday night.

An Israeli jet also targeted a group of resistance fighters in the east of Beit Hanoun, the Palestinian Information Center said, adding that they survived the air strike.

Palestinian sources said Israel also carried out an air strike on the town of Beit Lahia.

Three Israeli rockets were fired at Shaikh Zayed area in northern Gaza.

Palestinian Health Ministry said that 25 Palestinians, including six children, were injured in the attacks.

Tel Aviv claimed that Palestinian resistance forces had fired a number of rockets at an Israeli military position.

On Friday, clashes broke out between Israeli forces and Palestinians protesting against the recent decision by US President Donald Trump to recognize the occupied al-Quds as the "capital" of Israel despite widespread international opposition to the measure. Trump announced his decision on Wednesday. He said Washington would relocate the US embassy in the occupied lands from Tel Aviv to al-Quds.

In reaction to the announcement, Palestinians staged rallies across the West Bank, al-Quds, and Gaza.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Mahmoud al-Masri, 30, was shot to death by Israeli forces in Gaza's southern city of Khan Yunis on Friday.

On Thursday, the Israeli military said an aircraft and a tank had targeted two security posts in Gaza. The attack in the late hours of the day had no casualties.