Alwaght- The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees will be forces to suspend some of its Gaza operations, deteriorating the dire humanitarian situation in the besieged enclave.
The agency was thrown into severe financial crisis after the US cut $250 million from its budget. UNRWA provides schools and health clinics to 5.3 million refugees in the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov told a Security Council meeting that UNRWA is “weeks away from painful cuts to its emergency assistance for Gaza and elsewhere in the region,” AFP said. “In Gaza, this would include a deferral of salaries to some of its workforce in July and the start of suspending core operations in August,” he added.
The Gaza strip has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.
The Israeli regime denies about 1.8 million people in Gaza their basic rights, such as freedom of movement, jobs with proper wages as well as adequate healthcare and education.