ISRAEL REFUSED TRANSPORTATION OF HUMANITARIAN AID, UN COMMISSIONER’S VISIT TO GAZA

Wed 19 May 2021:

Israel has refused access to the Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom checkpoint to UN humanitarian assistance and the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the agency’s spokesman, Adnan Abu Hasna, told Sputnik.

“The Israeli authorities have refused the delivery of humanitarian aid and not given consent yet to the visit of the UNRWA Commissioner-General to the Gaza Strip,” Abu Hasna said.

The spokesman added that if humanitarian aid is not urgently delivered to the people of Gaza, “unprecedented catastrophic consequences” will ensue.

Some 48,000 Palestinians were displaced as a result of armed hostilities between the Gaza Strip and Israel, and while the UNRWA is striving to help them, the agency falls short of an additional $150 million in funding, Abu Hasna said.

Israel has also recently blocked the Kerem Shalom checkpoint for a supply of fuel for a power plant in Gaza, which is struggling with an acute shortage of electricity.