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U.N. Accuses Israel Of Impeding Relief Supplies Into Gaza Strip
by Judi Rever
GAZA CITY (AFP) - The United Nations refugee relief agency accused Israel Monday of impeding two and half months of humanitarian supplies from entering the Gaza Strip by imposing unreasonable security restrictions and charging thousands of dollars in port fees.
"Humanitarian supplies should be facilitated and not obstructed. We are not getting the trust and support that we deserve from Israel," Peter Hansen, commissioner-general for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said in Gaza City.
"We are facing a very, very serious situation of deprivation in everyday supplies such as nourishment, medicine, building materials to repair refugee shelters destroyed by the shelling, and artificial limbs," said Hansen, adding that food stocks were all but depleted.
Israel slapped a tight blockade on the Palestinian territories when violence broke out in late September, dealing a crippling blow to the economy of the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Israel said it has continued to allow the free movement of humanitarian aid into the territories, though.
But lengthy security checks of U.N. containers at Israel's Ashdod port and the Karni crossing into the Gaza Strip, along with steep financial charges that the U.N. agency has refused to pay have prevented all relief aid from being delivered, according to U.N. officials and a report shown to AFP.
Hansen said the agency was "anticipating a crisis" unless the restrictions were lifted immediately.
The agency - which serves a 3.7 million Palestinian refugee population in the region - has raised the issue with Israeli authorities, who say "they are looking at it," and at the U.N. general assembly, Hansen said.
"We will continue to remind Israel of its humanitarian and legal obligations," said Hansen, whose staff has complained to the Israeli Defense Forces and the foreign ministry to no avail.
Israel is asking the U.N. agency for some $120,000 in storage and handling fees for two months worth of supplies, mainly food and medicine, currently at the port.
Authorities are also demanding another $40,000 in fees at Karni crossing, Lionel Brisson, the agency's director of operations in Gaza said.
Storage and handling fees imposed on an additional 25,000 tons of emergency relief expected for delivery, along with future charges if restrictions are not eased, could cost the U.N. agency "hundreds of thousands of dollars," Brisson said.
"We consider that Israeli authorities are responsible for these charges because they are holding up the delivery of supplies," he said.
The charges are on top of some $3.8 million in customs duties that the U.N. has been charged by Israel since 1993, after the signing of the Oslo peace accord.
Before 1993, humanitarian aid was exempted from duty.
Since the Palestinian uprising against Israel erupted, some 21,000 families or 100,000 people, considered "worst cases," have received U.N. food rations. But most food stocks have dried up, and another 100,000 families or 600,000 people are hungry, the agency said.
At a refugee camp in Rafah, where Hansen paid a visit on Monday, angry women shouted at U.N. workers for not giving them food rations.
"Our families are hungry," they yelled, tugging the arms of aid workers and journalists.
"Unfortunately they are not considered the worst cases," said a U.N. staff member, apologetically.
Last week, the U.N. Middle East coordinator said Israel's closure of the Palestinian territories was "counter-productive" and had wiped out years of progress.
Terje Roed-Larsen said in a bleak report that the Palestinian economy had lost some $500 million during the first 60 days of the violence and that unemployment was now running at 40%.
The blockade, which prevents Palestinians from working in the Jewish state, had thrown 260,000 people out of work while a total of one million - about one third of the population - had suffered a "serious income loss," he said.
On Monday, Palestinian health minister Ridayh Zahnoun said Israel was blocking medical supplies from entering the territories.
The minister also said he had raised the issue with a U.S.-led fact-finding committee which arrived Monday to investigate the root of Israeli-Palestinian violence, which has left 320 people dead in 11 weeks.
"Israel's occupation is still preventing international and Arab aid to the Palestinian territories," Zahnoun told a press conference here.
He said Israeli authorities were barring the delivery of 20 ambulances from Eygpt, another 18 from Amman, and a total of 70 trucks full of medical supplies from Iraq.
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