United Nations Radio

Allegra Pacheco, the Deputy Head of OCHA, the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs, in the Palestinian territories, says United Nations humanitarian agencies, along with national and international non-governmental organization in the occupied Palestinian territories, have appealed for 462 million dollars to fund humanitarian assistance programmes.

Pacheco:Yes, the Gaza Strip is in a dire situation. We call it a crisis in human dignity.

Narrator:This assistance, says Ms. Pacheco, will help alleviate the most immediate symptoms of the crisis in terms of providing foood, and some cash. However, she says ultimately what the Gaza Strip needs is more investments in development and most importantly, a political solution:

Pacheco:What we've seen in Gaza in the last year is a significant jump in unemployment from 25 percent up to 40 percent. 100,000 people are unemployed. All the major systems, whether it be the health system or the education system has been affected by the strikes. The utilities, the electric plants, the sanitation, the water authorities, all of their infrastructure require tremendous investments and improvements. And so what we're providing is just a bandaid to stop the leak in the dam. Ultimately this will not solve the problem and ultimately the blockade has to be lifted, and civilians have to be taken out of this conflict.

Narrator:Recently, Israel allowed some fuel to enter the Gaza Strip. Ms. Pacheco says while this is helpful, it is not enough:

Pacheco:Anytime the Israelis are allowing humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip, that's a positive step. But we have to look at it in context. "Unrwa" alone, which provides the majority of humanitarian assistance, needs at least 15 trucks a day to come in. So when we're talking about the last three weeks, about 40 trucks overall, that's not very significant in terms of alleviating the humanitarian problem. And of course there are other UN humanitarian organizations, international organizations that have the assistance. And plus, as I've said before, there are all these spare parts of raw materials that are not included in these humanitarian efforts, and that have been waiting for over a year to get in. In terms of fuel, some fuel has gone into the industrial plants, but it doesn't cover all the fuel needs - there is cooking gas that is needed, there is petrol, there is diesel for all the backup generators that operate the cost of power outages, which are up to 8 hours a day.

Narrator:A voice from the Gaza Strip. This is Gerry Adams, United Nations.

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