Dubai: Aid agencies have mobilised relief supplies from the International Humanitarian City (IHC) in Dubai to send to the tens of thousands of displaced families in Gaza.
Displaced Palestinians seeking help from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) are teeming in numbers and may soon be as high as 100,000.
His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has directed aid agencies based in Dubai to airlift aid supplies to the refugees.
A 747 cargo took off on Sunday carrying 115 metric tons of aid, containing 45,000 mattresses, 10,000 blankets and 220 hygiene kits. The plane landed at Marka International Airport in Amman early on Monday.
UNRWA Commissioner General, Pierre Krahenbuhl, lauded the UAE and the aid agencies for the immediate reaction. He said: “The Dubai airlift is one of the best examples of how effective humanitarians can be when working together.”
The IHC coordinated participation of member organisations in less than 24 hours. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN World Food Programme (WFP)/UN Humanitarian Response Depot), the UN Children’s Fund, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the Emirates Red Crescent participated in the initiative.
The members are working together to maximise efforts in delivering aid to 100,000 internally displaced people in Gaza.
Relief items included jerry cans, sleeping mats, blankets, tarpaulins, hygiene kits and kitchen sets. They were dispatched from IHC warehouses, which hold supplies, as well as some of the largest global stockpiles, for aid agencies including the UNHCR, WFP and IFRC, and then transferred to the royal aircraft in the Dubai Air Wing.
More airlifts are scheduled to arrive in Amman, from where UNRWA will truck the aid into Gaza for distribution in the coming days.
UNRWA plans to expand the scope of the donations to include emergency food parcels as stocks of food and other essential goods dwindle.
