As Gaza Parents Go Unpaid, Children Go Hungry
By STEVEN ERLANGER
The United Nations is now helping to feed 830,000 people in Gaza, an increase of 100,000 since March, but to receive the relief agency’s aid they have to be classified as refugees, who make up 70 percent of Gaza’s 1.4 million people. The increase is largely refugees who work for the government and did not need assistance before.
The World Food Program helps to feed the poorest of the nonrefugees and now has 220,000 beneficiaries, an increase of 25 percent since March, which includes 136,000 people considered to be the “chronic poor,” who are not getting previous welfare benefits from the Authority.
“We have a complete deterioration of the economic situation in Gaza,” said Kirstie Campbell of the agency. “People can’t afford the basic things.” Seventy percent of Gazans now depend on the United Nations for food aid.
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