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WFP calls for unfettered access to people of Gaza
The World Food Programme has expressed deepening concern about the severe breakdown of food supplies and distributions in Gaza, and the agency says it would scale up its operations to respond to urgent needs.
Palestinian child eats bread
WFP plans to broaden its reach to provide food assistance to up to 360,000 of the non-refugee population in Gaza, while the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) will meet food requirements among the refugee population that numbers more than a million people.
The head of the World Food Programme Josette Sheeran says "the situation in Gaza is dire with at least 80 per cent of the people needing urgent food assistance."
Speaking in Rafah, on the Egyptian border with Gaza, where she had travelled to hear at first hand the humanitarian challenges on the ground, Sheeran says "it's critical that WFP and all humanitarian workers have free and unfettered access to the people of Gaza at this difficult time," adding that food supplies were waiting in warehouses to be distributed to the hungry.
Sheeran has despatched a senior WFP team to Jerusalem to meet the Israeli authorities and urge them to grant freer humanitarian access to Gaza so that WFP can respond to the immediate food needs.
This is Donn Bobb reporting for United Nations Radio.
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