UN calls for $294 mn for ‘urgent needs’ in Gaza, occupied West Bank
The funds would be used to help more than 1.2 million people, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, adding that recent fighting in the region had left aid groups without adequate resources, reports AFP.
On Saturday, Hamas gunmen swept into small towns, kibbutzim and a music festival in Israel, indiscriminately killing more than 1,200 people and taking about 150 hostages.
Israel has retaliated by raining air and artillery strikes on Gaza — a densely populated enclave of 2.3 million people — flattening buildings and killing more than 1,400 people, many of them civilians.
Humanitarian needs compounded by the May 2023 escalation in Gaza and the deterioration of the situation in the West Bank “have left humanitarian organizations without the resources required to adequately respond to the full range of needs of vulnerable Palestinians,” OCHA said in its appeal.
The UN has previously estimated it would need $502 to fund operations to aid 2.1 million Palestinians in 2023, a goal that is less than 50-percent financed.
Nearly 60 percent of households in Gaza were considered food insecure before the start of the new hostilities.
As of late Thursday, the number of displaced in Gaza rose by over 84,400 people to reach more than 423,300, according to OCHA figures.
Gaza is home to some 50,000 pregnant women — 5,500 of whom are due to give birth in the coming month — “who are struggling to access essential health services as healthcare workers, hospitals and clinics come under attack.”
