Rectifying for Help to Everyone

UN suspends aid distribution in Gaza

24 April 2008

GAZA CITY (AFP) - The United Nations said on Thursday it has suspended its aid distribution in the Gaza Strip because it has run out of fuel in the besieged Palestinian territory.

"We have just stopped the distribution of all food aid to 650,000 Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip because of the lack of fuel in our storage in Gaza," said Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency office (UNRWA) in Gaza.

Update:

Palestinian fuel distributors in the Gaza Strip agreed today to provide an emergency shipment to a UN aid agency that had warned it would have to halt food distribution unless its trucks received fuel.

UN food assistance to 650,000 Palestinian refugees had been scheduled to stop today due to fuel cuts, but Mahmoud al-Khuzundar, of the Association for Petrol Station Owners in the Gaza Strip, said 50,000 litres (13,209 gallons) of diesel would be delivered to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

The agency said it needed 7,000 litres a day for food distribution.