Concerned over crisis in occupied Palestinian territories, UN sends in relief aid
Palestine-Israel, Politics, 4/3/2002

The United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on Tuesday delivered urgently needed food and medical supplies to the Ramallah Hospital, while voicing deep concern about the worsening humanitarian situation in the West Bank following the Israeli military assaults on Ramallah, Bethlehem, Tulkarm and Qalqilya.

Despite the influx of much-needed relief, "scores of the Agency's staff and thousands of refugees throughout the area of operations remain trapped with dwindling supplies of water, food and medicine," UNRWA said in statement released in Gaza. According to the statement, the Agency believes that a number of its staff have been held in detention by Israeli forces sweeping the West Bank. UNRWA said it was "trying to determine how many of its staff have been detained and will work for their release." The Agency's Commissioner-General, Peter Hansen, drew attention to the humanitarian crisis spawned by Israel's actions.

"The alarming military incursions in the West Bank are causing us deep concern for the welfare of our staff, the refugees and the many innocent civilians killed or wounded by the fighting," he said, citing reports that some 25,000 people in the Ramallah area lacked water. "Bodies are piling up in hospitals and medicines are in short supply," he added.

"UNRWA urgently needs free and unfettered access to the area to be about to carry out its urgently needed humanitarian work." A UN spokesman told reporters in New York that the UNRWA team delivering supplies to Ramallah came under fire from Israeli positions despite having cleared its movement in advance with the military authorities.

Previous Stories:
  Israel's minister of interior calls for withdrawing Israeli nationality from the Arabs of 1948   (4/2/2002)
  Arafat calls from deploying UN forces to protect the Palestinians   (4/1/2002)
  Some 40 peace advocates westerners choose to stay with Arafat   (4/1/2002)

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