Region | Palestinian Territories

UN halts aid to Gaza in fear of attacks

Conditions in Gaza were set to worsen on Thursday after a UN aid agency halted work, saying its staff were at risk.

  • Agencies
  • Published: 20:14 January 8, 2009
  • Gulf News

  • The United Nations Relief and Works Agency on Thursday halted aid to Gaza for fear of attacks as Israeli forces continued fighting Hamas militants.
  • Image Credit: AP

Gaza: Palestinians faced even grimmer conditions in the Gaza Strip on Thursday after a UN aid agency halted work, saying its staff were at risk from Israeli forces fighting Hamas militants, after two drivers were killed.

Israel also came under sharp Red Cross criticism that it was delaying access to casualties. The reported Palestinian death toll in the 13-day-old conflict topped 700.

"UNRWA decided to suspend all its operations in the Gaza Strip because of the increasing hostile actions against its premises and personnel," Adnan Abu Hasna, a Gaza-based spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

He did not say how long the suspension by the agency, which provides food and other aid to some 750,000 Gazans, would last.

The decision followed the deaths of two Palestinian forklift drivers in an UNRWA convoy hit by an Israeli tank shell. All convoys ferrying humanitarian supplies from at least two key crossing points with Israel were suspended after the incident.

Israeli fire has also hit two UNRWA schools, killing more than 45 Palestinians, medical officials in Gaza said.

Figures from the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza showed that 715 people had been killed and at least 3,000 wounded since the Israeli assault began on December 27.

At least 11 Israelis have been killed, eight of them soldiers, including four hit by "friendly" fire.

Despite the hellish conditions for the 1.5 million Palestinians crammed into the coastal strip, international efforts to secure a ceasefire have yet to bear fruit.

Neither Israel nor Hamas has yet agreed to the details of an Egyptian-European proposal that also has US support

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