Anti-siege committee chief calls for UN emergency fund for Gaza

The head of the Popular Committee Against the Siege on Gaza has called on the UN to set up an emergency fund to help ease the humanitarian crises in the Gaza Strip, Safa news agency reported on Friday. Jamal Al-Khodari warned that the humanitarian situation in the besieged territory is rapidly turning very dangerous due to the electricity, water and sewage problems.

“The aim of this fund would be to treat the catastrophic consequences of the humanitarian crises in Gaza away from the political division and the measures taken by the [Israeli] occupation,” the Independent MP explained. He pointed out that such a fund would fall well within the role and principles of the UN, the Geneva Conventions and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights.

Al-Khodari called on all Palestinian NGOs to support the idea in order to mobilise and push the UN to establish it. He stressed that he is in contact with everyone interested in the humanitarian issue.

The MP also appealed for the Arab and Islamic countries as well as the international community to contribute to such a fund to help the Palestinian residents of Gaza, especially vulnerable children, patients and people with special needs.

Discussing some of the main issues facing Gaza, the anti-siege committee head pointed out that economic stagnation is crippling the territory, with unemployment hitting around 25 per cent of the 2 million population, including thousands of university graduates. Almost 80 per cent of the population exist on or below the official poverty line.

The complicated situation in Gaza, Al-Khodari concluded, is the result of more than 10 years of a strict Israeli-led siege and three Israeli offensives that killed thousands of people and destroyed tens of thousands of properties and vital infrastructure.