UNRWA:

Food Insecurity in Gaza at High Level

Date: 19 February 2019 - 21:46

News ID: ۶۳۳۱۱

GZA STRIP (Dispatches) – UNRWA announced that about 1.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are suffering from food insecurity.
UNRWA said in a monthly report for January 2019 that the Zionist regime’s blockade on the Gaza Strip led to high levels of unemployment and low purchasing power, Palinfo reported.
Over 68% of Gaza families are suffering from poverty and food insecurity, according to the report.
In another context, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the large number of victims among Palestinian demonstrators in the Great March of Return did not pose any threat to the regime.
"This raises serious concerns over the excessive use of force by Israel and continues to cause enormous pressure on the health system in Gaza, including the health services provided by UNRWA," OCHA added.
OCHA pointed out that 20% of those injured in the Great March of Return are children, confirming the death of 13 students from UNRWA schools in the protests.
UNRWA said that the 12-year-long blockade by the Zionist regime and Egypt is illegal under international law and is a form of collective punishment which threatens the continuation of life-saving services in the Gaza Strip.
The UN agency added that 39% of the patients applying for permits were unable to leave the Gaza Strip through Erez crossing to complete their treatment outside the enclave.
More than 270 Palestinians have been martyred by Zionist troops’ gunfire --- and thousands more injured --- since Palestinians in the Gaza Strip began staging weekly protests along the buffer zone in March of last year.
Demonstrators demand the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and villages in historical Palestine from which they were driven in 1948 to make way for the new state of Israel.
They also demand an end to Israel’s 12-year blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its roughly two million inhabitants of many basic commodities.